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tothosewholisten · 2 months ago

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Forever Healed | TUA insert

Chapter: 16

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Cw: severe body injuries, alcohol abuse, cursing

...

Five pulled me aside from the crowd after I told him I was leaving the academy, and with furrowed brows, he started complaining. “What do you mean you're leaving?” He whispered.

Matching his tone I continued. “I already told you Five, If I don't go, then I'll die with an unfulfilled life and my ghost will wonder why I didn't do it.” Maybe I was exaggerating, but he didn't need to know.

Five’s stare wavered when he heard my reasoning. “Fine, just come back quick. You're the only one who can truly handle all these.. morons.” I chuckled at his words and turned back to the group, who were still staring at the paper Five handed them minutes ago.

“I better go quick before they notice.” I gave Five a final smile and tried to sneakily leave the area. But sadly I'm not a ninja and my absence was immediately noticed by the one who was mainly asking questions in the group.

Klaus jogged over to my faint figure with a grin on his face. “Whatchu up to?”

“Uhh too much excitement for one day, Klaus. And also the fact that I'm in wet and bloody clothes has caught up to me. I'm gonna head to my room.” I answered while trying not to give away too much.

His eyes widen, “but you're about to miss Luther's big plan of action! Poor guy still thinks he’s in charge.”

“I think I'll manage.” I cringed inside at my sudden coldness, but I was not sure if I wanted to open up about this.

“Oh come on! It feels like I haven’t seen you for forever.” He whines.

I stopped my progression up the stairs and met him at the bottom step. “It’s because you haven’t. I've been gone for almost a year, excuse me if things have changed.” My tone was sharp, it lacked all the fun qualities I'd normally have when talking to Klaus. It’s not like I wanted to be mad at him, since I had no reason. I was just mad at my situation. “I'll see you later Klaus.”

I disappointed myself with my actions. It was just hard to talk to someone so happy, after everything I'd just been through. I had also lied to my best friend, I wasn't going to my room, just yet,

I headed in the opposite direction to the place where I knew the person I needed would be. He had no room, which I never understood growing up, and neither did Grace. But when I'd be running around with Klaus and Ben we'd sometimes run into him in a mini library, one that Reginald probably kept to himself.

Gently, I knocked at the door to not alert the reading man. “Pogo?” I said.

He put his heavy book down and stood up to greet me. “Ms, Y/n! To what do I owe the pleasure?”

We walked back over to the seating area to talk, I held my breath the whole time. There was no easy way of going about what I was going to say next. I'd never talked about this to him, nor did I to anyone else. After all, if Reginald ever caught me saying things like this there would be heavy repercussions. But, he’s dead and here I am ready to spill my guts.

“I want to go home, Pogo.”

He tilted his head at me with confusion before looking around the room. “I'm afraid I don't understand. This is the academy.”

“You know what I'm talking about, please just humor me. I want to go back to where I was born and see my parents.” I pleaded.

Finally, after I said that it finally clicked in his head. Pogo started to fidget and sweat slightly. “Ms. Y/n..

I let out a loud sigh. “Look, I-I know I sound crazy but hear me out. I don't know if the others have told you but we only have a few days left on this planet. That is if we fail to save it, and I can't take those odds.. I need to see them one last time, just to talk and ask why.”

“And if you don't get the answer you want?” His words surprised me, his laid-back persona and natural calmness were completely abandoned. “I don't know what I'd do if you came back here and told me that they didn’t receive you with open arms.”

“Well then, I can say that I finally did it.” Something I've always wanted to do for years. His response was correct though, what if they didn't even want to see me?

Pogo went on. “I remember the moment when you were brought to me, I don't know if you recall but I was the first person you saw in the academy. Except for Master Reginald of course. You were as tall as me back then.” He chuckled. “But oh so scared, you wouldn't speak to anyone but me. You even told me that you were happy to leave your parents.”

“What?” I choked on the words leaving my mouth. “What are you talking about? I remember hugging my mom tightly as he and his people dragged me off, kicking and screaming.”

“That’s not how I remember it?” He said truthfully.

“How can we have different experiences of the same event?” I asked. “That's.. that's not the only thing I can't remember. I don't even know what my house looks like anymore. If I knew I'm sure twelve-year-old me would’ve run right back and begged for forgiveness. But I'm not that old, how can I not remember a place I spent twelve years of my life?” Pogo stared at me, almost like there were no thoughts behind his eyes. “This is why I need to go. I have blank spots in my head. I just need the full story.”

Time passed and no matter how much we went back and forth during my time in the mini library it was obvious I wasn't taking no for an answer.

“Pogo. Don’t I deserve to be in control of my own life?” That shook him to his core, he almost looked guilty.

The monkey man stood up with a wobble. “Very well.” He then slowly pulled out a pen from his pocket and a piece of paper that was on the table next to him. He thought about his words before he started scribbling down what looked like chicken scratch. Once he was done, with a shaky hand and a heavy heart he handed it to me. But I couldn’t read anything? I was about to tell him to rewrite it when everything became clear. Like magic, the unreadable blurb became a cohesive sentence. It was an address, my address. I lower the paper and stare down at him.

“I don’t understand. Brownsville is only a town or two away. It’s not like I came from another state, why don't I remember this?”

“I'm afraid I don't have that answer..”

I carefully folded the parchment and placed it into my suit pocket. “You don’t understand how much this means to me, Pogo.”

“Anything for you, my girl.” He sadly smiled. Something was off with him, it was clear to see judging by his body language. Before leaving I hugged the man and whispered that I'll tell him all about it when I got back.

Then I was off. Actually, to my room this time, to bathe and change. Before leaving I stared at myself in the mirror. Would I even be able to spot my parents out in a crowd? Do they even still live there? Would they even recognize me?

I no longer was the spitting image of my mom, if that was ever the case. Maybe I was born in a lab test tube.

Exiting the academy was a weird feeling. I'd almost forgotten how pretty this city could be, after only seeing corporate desks and sleazy streets nothing compared to this. I entered the same metro bus I'd taken to get to my first therapy session. If only I could go back to Gloria now, I'm sure she'd have a heart attack with all of the ludicrous things that have happened since we last spoke. If I have more time and we save the world I promised myself I'd go back to her.

The bus ride was silent, I had no room for music with all my swirling thoughts. No matter how I arrived at the academy I couldn’t forget the reason why I was put there. My parents wanted the money more than me. Just as all the other parents sold off their children to Reginald's fucked up daycare.

Even if they were extremely nice to me I'd never forget the things this situation brought me or the abuse I was given in both houses, as well as the pain and grief of a boy I should've never met, terrifying and uncontrollable powers and a horrible mindset to go with it all.

I spent the bus ride looking out of the window for about an hour and a half until we had finally reached the last stop. Brownsville was a town I only heard of through word of mouth, I never imagined I would grow up here.

Taking a step off the bus and onto the Brownsville dirt was an anxious experience, but if things went wrong I knew I could just get back on this same bus and run away. The air felt different here as well as the people and the noises. It filled me with a sense of dread that my body ignored as it kept moving.

The area I walked into was crowded with all types of people and all kinds of food which looked way more authentic than the stuff I force-fed to myself recently. I let my nose follow the scent of chicken and the nearest person to ask for directions.

“Excuse me?” I spoke. The old man working at the stand didn’t hear me, he was too busy on the grill. I felt very out of place and proper, I even stood up straight in anticipation.

Suddenly another man came up to the booth and started ordering in a language I didn't think I knew the name of. But it was things I'd felt like I'd heard before. The worker picked up his head to the words and cheerfully greeted the man like I was just his shadow. With the same quickness that the random man had entered, he had also left after receiving his food.

I was left with the worker man with no way of communicating. I only knew one language, which was uncommon in the Umbrella Academy. Ben knew Korean and Diego knew Spanish and the others had picked up their second languages as they grew up. I was never quick to learn.

My mind went back to where I heard this language. It wasn't at the academy, and it wasn't at the commission headquarters. It hugged me like a blanket of nostalgia. I must be going crazy. All my memories are scrambled, I can't tell where my history starts and where my blanks end. But for certain I know my life started here.

Once again I was pushed aside by a herd of young adults who all spoke the same language that was causing me so much trouble. Slowly but surely I started picking up what they were saying. One girl wanted a chicken and rice meal and the others wanted to go somewhere else. It felt like someone had a live translator humming all the words in my ear.

How did I do that?

When they ran off laughing with each other I was left at a standstill. Was this like the paper from earlier? As soon as I piece things together it's like a new area of my mind is unlocked.

As soon as the third customer cut in front of me all that confusion melted away. This time the customer was an elderly lady with striking H/c hair. She looked like me, she looked like my mother. She spoke the same language I'd heard all afternoon. People were speaking it on the bus back when I was too lost to pay attention, people were walking over to the vendors speaking this language, and little children pushed past me cheering in a language that all made sense to me.

And with a bit of courage and a lot of nervousness, I spoke my mother’s native tongue, for the woman to hear. I sound nasally and maybe I said some words wrong. But when the woman abandoned her tasty food to bring me over to my parent's house I knew I said the right thing.

Maybe this woman was my mom? No. My mom would be a bit younger if what I know is correct. My mother had me around her twenties and it's been almost thirty years since she would only be in her fifties. Maybe she was just a neighbor, but that wouldn't explain her striking resemblance.

“What’s your name?” I asked her in my broken version of the language. My shoes were now covered in mud as we strayed off a path. I started to think I was getting willingly kidnapped which led to my death. But the woman is elderly and also barely walking correctly. It was still eerily creepy when she never responded to me, just kept her same slow pace.

At the end of the mud was a street of houses that stretched to the ends of the earth, probably. Everything looked out of a commercial. It was too saturated and vibrant for this state where everything has a sad blue hue, except for Brownsville. We were not the only ones on the street witnessing the splash of color though, small children in uniforms were everywhere and so was a sand-colored school building.

My old school, my old uniform.

I almost ran into the non-talkative lady when she stopped at a house. This was it, we were finally here. After years of thoughts, cries and yells about my past life. I'd finally returned when there was no true reason to. Except for the fact that I was hurting inside, and needed to distract it with another type of pain. Family pain.

“Thank you,” I said in disbelief. I thought surely the lady was going to leave now. She surprised me when she took out the keys from her pocket and unopened the door.

She disappeared inside in a flash. “Hey-” my mouth hung open as I followed the woman in, desperate for answers. But I soon got lost in awe because of my surroundings. I was having a sensory overload, I'm sure. Memories all came back to me at once as I looked around. Nothing in the tiny house had changed since I was living there. They even had the same wall colors of the nineties.

This place was preserved in time like a memory box, but untouched by a single speck of dust. Someone had just dusted, and no way in hell it was my dad. I lost sight of the strange woman but picked up on something new, the smell of stew on the stove. Just like my mom made me when I came home from school..

An aged voice spoke out, filled with content. “Mom? Is that you, are you back?” It was barely above normal speaking voice and definitely not in English. I blinked and saw the older woman dipping a spoon into the unfinished stew. A middle-aged woman with a gentle voice and flowy clothing walked down the carpet-covered stairs and into the kitchen.

“Mama! You know you're supposed to wait.” She laughed while moving her mother away from the pot. It was straight out of a movie, about a kind daughter and her loving mother while I was just an extra in it.

I felt a wave of nausea, this was a horrible stupid idea you fucking moron. Why would you come here, you knew what was going to happen. I made my way to the door in a panic, if I let her see me I knew I'd burst into tears on the spot and melt into a sentimental puddle.

I'm not ready to face her, I told myself.

I expected my dad at least to be here, not her. So I could just yell at him and maybe get a few punches in. My wishful thinking made me not even prepare for what I was going to tell them. At the sound of the door handle shaking the two turned around to see me struggling with my back turned towards them.

“Did you invite another neighbor over? I swear I won't be able to feed every stray you bring in, Mama.” The middle-aged woman said. But her mom didn't say anything.

My breathing was heavy, I thought my heart was going to leap out of my chest and into her stew. I could hear the footsteps of her getting closer to me, I came all the way here I had to get this over with. Come on Y/n just turn around.

The woman spoke in her common tongue to greet her guest. “Hello! I’m-” The clatter of the wooden spoon she was holding in her hand made the room shake. She stared at me with an open wide mouth and tears in her eyes.

I was told to take a seat in the living room and was also served a plate of stew that had gone cold by now. With a cup of water in my hand, I waited for my mom to sit opposite of me so we could talk. But she was wrapping things up in the kitchen. My grandmother was elsewhere but even in her absence, she did strike a question in my brain. When did she get here? She wasn't here when I was. I didn't even know I had a grandmother or any family on my mom's side.

Taking a look at my mom I saw that she'd definitely changed also, she cut her hair and wore more modest clothing than she used to. She looked like she was still a mother who was tired from her days of raising a kid. But what kid did she raise?

Once she sat down I felt like I needed to get down to business, I was growing more restless by the moment. But she beat me to it.

“How have you been?” She asked me.

I took a double take at her question. “Excuse me? That’s something you say when you haven’t heard from someone in weeks. Not to your child who you haven’t seen for seventeen years.”

She was startled at my response. “You're right, I'm sorry.” She spoke softly.

What the hell was going on here? Had these years been a dream because she was treating me like I'd never left? We sat in silence just staring at each other, my stare was more in anger but she stared at me with whimsy.

“You look great.”

“Don’t be so surprised, I looked great seventeen years ago too.” She made me scoff at her words. We dropped the second language minutes ago, I knew she knew had to speak English and I couldn’t get my point across in anything but English.

She ran a hand through her hair. “I saw the news the other day. I'm so sorry for your loss.” She said,

“What loss?”

“Sir Reginald Hargreeves? It must've been hard.”

I laughed in disbelief before saying. “Are you kidding me?”

“What?”

“Fuck Reginald Hargreeves.”

“B/n..”

I shook my head at the cowardly woman. “Don’t call me that. There’s no need to feel bad for him. He was a horrible man, Mom. You know, One of the first things he made me do was get a tattoo at twelve that branded me to him. And then he'd make me shoot bullet holes everywhere in my body every day. Father of the fucking year.”

“Please don't curse.” She pleaded.

“Are you even listening?” I asked back.

My mom looked down at her glass of water. “Of course I am! Something about a tattoo right B/n?”

I stood up in my chair slightly, repulsed and almost in shock by the way she said that name. After The Handler, I grew to hate a name I forgot I was even called. I wanted to flip the table and walk away but I grounded myself with a simple shout. “You're not listening. You don't get to call me that, that’s not my name. My name is Y/n. Do you know why? Because it was changed by the academy. Just like every other aspect of this bullshit fake life, I thought I had!” Maybe that wasn't a simple shout. It felt good though.

“Please calm down.” She tried to grab onto my hand. I slapped it away but it did make me sit. God, I'll never move on from my submission.

“I didn't come here for lunch. I came here for answers, so start answering,” she sat back down as well and I took a sip of the water given to me. “Why’d you do it?”

“Do what?” No way she was this dense.

“Oh my god. I mean all of this?” She had no response. “Why’d you give me away when the first man offered? Why’d you never get back in contact with me? You never sent any letters. Why didn't you visit? You didn't even tell me you loved me before I left..” I could feel salty tears drop to the corners of my mouth. “Don’t you understand what that did to me?”

She gulped down nerves as her heartbeat quickened. “It wasn't an easy decision, it was complicated.”

“I'm sure it was.” I rolled my eyes.

“Please just hear me out.” Her weakness was starting to show, her posture became smaller. Like she was trying to crawl back into her skin and away from this situation.

“Your father and I thought It wasn't easy to keep up with a daughter as unique as you..” She tried to justify.

“Speaking of the devil, where is he? Probably six feet under right?” I hoped so.

“He’s.. he's at work.” She turned to the clock on the kitchen wall. The same clock she'd always help me work with when I couldn’t figure out how to tell the time.

I couldn’t believe this. She’s still with him? The man who abused her, the man who hated her and married her out of convenience. “Why would you do that to yourself…? Why are you still with him, you're supposed to cut people out of your life when they hurt you. You had all this time to do it.”

“It’s complicated.”

“Not as complicated as when you gave me away right?”

“We had just gotten married, we didn't know what to do with a kid. You were special, you had superpowers! You weren't meant to stay here, you would’ve had a mundane life, and you would’ve wished to join those kids.” That was the first time I thought she was speaking her mind, but she had it all wrong.

“That’s what you actually believe? I would’ve been bored here?”

“You were made for something more. I always knew that. We thought Sir Reginald gave you a lovely home. I’ve watched you on TV all these years. You looked happy, you have siblings, you had everything I ever wanted growing up.”

“You’re basing my experience on what you saw on a TV? I can’t even think of them as my siblings. I met them when I was twelve!” I wanted to get my brains bashed again. Maybe I wouldn't have to remember this conversation.

“Well, I'm sure he had his reasons for what he did?”

“No! That’s not the truth, Reignald was an abusive asshole who only wanted us so he could use us. I joined late so I got all their childhood trauma at once. He was cruel and sadistic, Mom. Every day I wanted to go home, I wanted to come back here to you guys. Why would you give me up with the possibility of me having a happy life? Why couldn’t I have had a happy life here?”

“It was too much for us to handle at the time.”

“Oh yeah, I bet the cash he gave you made the time go by better.”

“Stop insinuating that we’re bad people!” She raised her voice. “We did the right thing.”

“I needed a mother! My mother! But you didn't even call.” I went higher than her; it was in my nature to be competitive.

“You want the truth?”

I cried out in agony. “That’s all I've ever wanted!”

“When you were shot in the stomach at the bank and came back like nothing was wrong. You scared me, I was scared of the possibilities that could happen. I had no idea you could do anything like that. I was scared of your powers at such a young age that I couldn’t help you control. I told your father, he was scared also and then we were approached by Reginald and we made the decision we thought would suit you best. We didn't want to confuse you so we never reached out.” She looked away.

“How did I scare you? I only tried to help you whenever he would hurt you. I’d be there to pick up the pieces. The reason why you have no scars on your face it’s because of me, why would I ever push someone to be scared of me? My powers are to heal people, not to hurt them. Why would anyone think that I’m dangerous?” I don't think I believed that at all. I know what I've done, it wasn’t something that reappeared in my head. If I told her I'd only prove her point.

My mind was racing back to memories like The Handler, who said I was a killer. My old boyfriend, who said I was crazy. The people I’ve killed even when I thought I was just protecting the world. Maybe I wasn’t so perfect. Maybe I was losing it, but that was only because of the situation I'd been put in.

“Because of this! Because of what you’re doing, you’re freaking out. You need to calm down B/n. You always hide your father's temper.” Now she was trying to blame me?

“I have my father’s temper? What about your selfishness? Even after I moved out you never thought of contacting me, Mom. It's almost been thirty years, I'm twenty-nine!”

Instead of responding, she checks the time again. “I'm so sorry Y/n. I don't know what else to say. I had no idea this would happen.”

As my anger rose, so did my blood pressure. “And now you're dropping the subject altogether. I don't even know you. I can't tell if you're being serious.”

“Then let's get to know each other. There’s so much I've always wanted to ask you.” She sounded so oblivious like we were just screaming at each other a couple minutes ago. But she wouldn’t stop staring at that damn clock.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

As soon as I say that she never looks at the clock again. “Nothing! I'll warm up your stew.”

My mom called over my grandmother and whispered something to her so quietly it sounded like the steam of the stew pot. Whatever she said it sent my grandmother running towards the door and out of it. “What was that?” I asked while getting up to meet my mother in the kitchen.

“I just asked her to grab some more vegetables for dinner before the store near here closes, we’re gonna have some pasta.” She stares at me. “Should I set a plate for you.. Y/n?”

The mention of dinner had me looking out the window. It was getting dark, just how long were we talking? I've been on my journey to Brownsville for almost the full day. Who knows what I've missed at the academy?

“I'm not sure if that's such a good idea, I have to get back to the academy..”

“Oh! Do you still live there?” She asked.

I blinked at her with confusion before realizing what I said. Everything has been so hectic recently that I didn't even know where to start with my explanation. “No it’s just, everyone is still together. From.. the funeral? Yeah, and we’ve just been with each other for the last few days. Grieving.” I tried to make myself seem as sad as possible but it wasn't working. We were together because the world was about to end, not because Reginald made us all sappy.

But now it was my time to ask a question. “What’s with pasta? You never made that before.”

She looked delighted to tell this story. She almost looked like Grace who would be ecstatic anytime we said her cooking was good. “It’s become one of your father's favorites since we need quicker meals to deal with- his new job.”

I folded my arms. “Which is?”

“He’s the head of a company which has produced books since a couple of years ago. I think he was even in charge of that book, that girl made. What’s her name again?” She counted different names that start with a v on her fingers until she landed on the right one. “Vanya! That’s her name.”

To think my dad published the book that helped drive a wedge into my family even more than there already was.

“I never read it myself but I heard great things from him.” She said, “What's with the name Y/n? Did Sir Reginald choose it?”

She made me think back to the currently dead Grace. “Something like that..”

My mother nodded in my direction. “It suits you. Better than what I picked out to be honest. But uh my mother, I mean your grandmother will be back soon, would you want to help me with the dough?”

I didn’t want to, my mind was focused on what I could have missed at the academy. Like if they went after Harold Jenkins themselves and someone got hurt. I was desperate for a feeling other than sorrow, maybe I needed a distraction. “I guess it could hurt.”

Despite how angry I still was with her, I helped her make dinner for a man I also hated. And as she gave me a demonstration on how to roll and make spaghetti out of the dough we started to talk once again. Since I no longer felt the pressure of sitting down at the living room table, the words started to flow out. She even answered my questions with her thoughts. She also handed me some wine as we kept talking. I'm not a drinker anymore but who am I to say no?

We laughed, we got angry and we got a bit sad, there was a perfect balance. It felt like I was talking to Allison, like the time when we stole Grace's dresses. We were never the closest but we could have civil conversations that led to great memories that lasted in my mind. It felt nice to talk to someone who wasn't superhuman or crazy. She was just a regular human being existing, I think I forgot how to one by now.

Once the pasta was in the water we took a seat on the couch. It was just as hard and lumpy as I remembered but nonetheless comforting. She handed me some more wine as we kept talking.

After some time the doorbell rang unexpectedly, it was weird because G/n, as I discovered was my grandmother's name, had a key. And so did my father who I was very scared to see. My mother got up and swayed towards the door to open it, slightly drunk and still raving about the score she got on Thanksgiving food last year. I was drunk too, I think, but I'd felt this lucid all day so I wasn't sure.

The person at the door made my mother almost drop her glass as she tried to usher them outside. It wasn’t G/n and it wasn't my father, so against my better judgment I went to see what was going on.

“This isn't a good time” she whispered.

“I thought you wanted me to come over for dinner?” The voice said it was a man.

As I walked to the door I smirked, did my mom have a secret lover? That’s something I would’ve never expected but made sense since she told me my father was never here. Once I opened the door back up I was excited to see what mysterious my mom’s life really held.

When I saw him I almost dropped my glass too. This wasn't some fifty year old man that I expected to see, it was a man who looked exactly like my mom. Like me. This man could’ve been my exact copy, the same look in his eyes and the same scowl id paint my face with if someone was pissing me off.

“What the fuck?” I yelled to no one in particular.

My mother looks at me in fright, completely sobered up. “Y/n.. Honey.”

As I downed my last drop of red wine I thought my body was going to give out, I felt betrayed and unwanted, clearly I was. “I was always the problem, wasn't I? I knew it.” I then addressed him directly. “How old are you?”

“What?” The stranger asked me. I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes, this kid didn't know how old he was. “Okay, easy math twelve minus twenty-nine is seventeen. You're around seventeen right? You're in high school or something?” I found myself not caring for the answer I could see his uniform on. He went to the same school I did.

He gulped while staring at my mother for approval. “Yeah..” he said quietly

“You got busy didn't you?” I laughed at M/n. It wasn't funny actually but that's all I could find myself doing at that moment, that or throwing something. “Probably didn't even wait a couple of months.”

“It’s not like that..” I found my supposed mother glancing back and forth between the both of us like she had to choose. “We just got so lonely.”

“So you didn't contact your daughter you already gave birth to. You just decided to start again? Have another kid and forget about me?”

The boy looked up at me surprised. “You're my sister?” He turned to our mother. I looked at the two of them. She didn't even bother to tell him? “You just love a mystery mom. Not even bothering to tell either of us is a new low.”

We left her at a loss for words. I'm sure she was thinking that the two carbon copies, twelve years apart, would never meet as long as I stayed out of her new perfect life with her perfect son.

By now the sky had turned a very vibrant shade of dark purple. There was nothing left to do here, it was time to leave. I entered their home once again to grab the huge bottle of wine they were probably going to enjoy with their meal. Turns out that I needed it more.

“Where are you going?” My mother called out.

I took a swig. “Oh, I'm leaving,” I said cheerfully. “I'm also taking this bottle here, it's very good. Thanks for the stew.” The thank you was more of a fuck you honestly. She was able to tell right away when she blocked my exit.

“Please, we can talk about this in the morning. Just stay with us.” She made everyone tense. Even my little brother looked anywhere but at us, he was trying to stay out of this.

I stepped up to the woman who had a similar height to me and she immediately backed up. She was scared of me, what bullshit. “There’s no need. I've never known this place as my home and you made that very clear today. This was a waste of time.”

Without another word, I walked out of the house. Secretly hoped it would catch on fire in an instant but that never came. And I limped all the way back to the muddy grass to get to the bus stop.

In the span of a whole day, I solved years of questions. With a simple answer, I wasn’t wanted. And my whole day was made worse because of it. I laughed as my hands went to tug at my hair. The outcome of this situation was hilarious to me, Pogo knew what would happen all along..

The bus didn't arrive until almost forty minutes after I arrived at the stop. Luckily I had my now empty wine bottle to keep me company. I knew I was going to make a pitstop before returning to the academy and getting more.

Once I'd gotten my fill, the bus ride home was filled with silent whimpers and bursts of excitement, my head was killing me. It could’ve been from all the alcohol mixed or because of stress, but I was practically up in the clouds. To the point where I almost missed the right stop.

I stepped off the bus after handing the driver an extra case of beer. I felt like I wanted to go dance, just like I used to with Klaus when we'd get this drunk. I planned to ask him to take me. I know he wouldn’t mind, right?

But when I got inside the academy I couldn’t find a single person where I left them. Of course, it’s been hours but weirdly I expected everyone to stay there. I was too wasted to go running around the huge mansion, I'm sure they’d turn up in the morning.

Without taking off my shoes or shredding myself of my clothes I went right to bed. I hoped when I woke up that this was all a dream..

…

“Y/N?”

“Wake up”

“Please.”

“Allison is..”

“Just get up, please”

An odd voice rang in my ears that sounded almost like Ben. But when I woke up I only saw Klaus, who stood over my body with tears in his eyes. It took a moment for me to adjust to my surroundings as well as my horrible headache.

He put his hands on my shoulders and shook me hard, it wasn't like him to be so tense. “Are you? Are you drunk?” He asked me while letting go.

I rose from my soft bed and rubbed my eyes. “I guess so,” I replied.

Soon another body entered my room, it was Five. He was equally as tense, he looked like he was about to explode. “She’s awake, good. We need to go before it's too late.” In the blink of an eye, I was no longer in my room but in the medical center of the academy. Had I forgotten a check-up? An important date? When I woke up earlier I had no idea what Klaus was saying. Just what happened in my absence, I was gone for a day..

When we reached the room everyone who wasn't in my room was surrounding the operating table. As I took a look around the room my vision was playing tricks on me, because when I noticed Pogo I saw someone else with him.... Grace? With blood on her white coat. Whatever was going on here felt like a terrible nightmare of my creation.

I opened my mouth to speak but was cut off when everyone noticed I was in the room.

“Where the hell have you been?” Someone yelled at me. I couldn’t tell whose figure was closing in on me since everything around me was so blurry. Suddenly everyone was near me when he lunged, they held him back.

“You need to calm down Luther.” Diego’s wavering voice said.

He huffed. “How can I calm down? Allison can die any moment and the only one who could save her was too busy getting her beauty rest.” He continued to yell in my face.

“Stop this behavior at once!” Pogo shouted. But that didn't stop the man, no matter how much everyone in the room protested.

I took a step back as I continued to hear his sorrows. “What the fuck is going on?”

Klaus spoke up from behind Luther. “Harold Jenkins got to Allison when she went looking for Vanya.”

It clicked in my messed up head who was on the operating table, my breathing started to shorten as I looked at her wounds after pushing Luther out of my way. Allison’s eyes were wide open as she was trying to cling to life. Her whole throat looked like someone took a chainsaw to her body, it was cut open and mangled with blood spurting out.

The image shook me to my core, it did with everyone else in the room too. “Oh god,” I whispered. Despite being heavily intoxicated my brain switched into a state of sobriety just for her. There had to be something I could do so I couldn't lose another person. “How long has she been here?” I asked the crowd.

“You came in a minute after us.” Five spoke.

Okay, at least maybe ten minutes. Not unsaveable. When my hands touched her delicate sliced skin I was brought back to my days of healing people on missions. But with the added alcohol, I asked for a bucket and then got to work.

“She suffered a severe laceration to the lungs..” I talked to myself as I worked, but the solution was nowhere in sight. “Blood! We need someone’s blood.”

All of the men said they’d do it at once but Luther was the loudest. “I'll do it.” He said while lifting his sleeve.

Pogo gave him a sad frown. “I'm afraid that's not possible, dear boy. Your blood is more compatible with mine.”

“Pogos right. I need someone else.” I snapped at the crowd to start speaking.

“Hey, don't sweat it. I—I got this, big guy. I love needles!” Klaus moved next to me with his arm out ready to give out his blood.

“You got too much shit in your blood,” I told him. “You're too polluted.”

Diego took that as his sign. “Move.” He said to Luther, still slightly pissed off at his outburst earlier.

Once I brought out the syringe the poor guy took one look at it and with a loud squeak fainted. Everyone looked around at each other desperate for something to do. But I had a new idea.

“Y/n stick him,” Pogo told me.

I looked around the room. “No need, I have a new plan. Pogo go grab the box of serum now.” There was no time for manners in times like these.

“What box? What serum.” Luther asked.

Once Pogo handed me the box I used days before to heal myself I answered his questions. “Don’t worry, it's not the monkey stuff. It’s me, it's my blood along with other properties mixed into a healing serum. I just thought I'd be best equipped to get my blood but since I just downed like thirty beers. This is the next solution, it should heal her, I tested it on myself a few days ago.

“Where the hell has this been?” Five looked at the monkey man.

I prepared one of the vials into a syringe. The golden liquid seemed to just glow in the darkly lit room, this just had to work.

“Master Reginald had worked on it up to the day that he died,” Pogo answered.

“Full of surprises,” I said sarcastically, I brought the string up to her cut flesh and held her hand with my other free hand. Please let this work. “I'm so sorry,” I whispered before sticking it into her skin. I knew that this was going to hurt immensely like it did for me, but it would be worth it in the end. As the liquid dispensed into her veins and there was no sign of her in pain I took a sigh of relief. That was until her whole body started to shake, she was spazzing out.

“What’s happening?” Klaus cried out.

“It’s okay! It’s how it works.” I reassured the crowd. It was one time though, I wasn't so sure what was happening. But no matter how twisted Reginald was, if he was here he’d come to the same solution.

Her body stopped shaking after a few moments, and the blood flowing from her open wound stopped. The cut started to reverse slowly but the serum did work. I then placed a cloth and bandage over her throat to suck up any blood left. “Give her time, she’s a fighter. In the morning I’ll tie her throat up” I concluded.

A hush fell over the whole room, they looked at me with the same awe I found myself feeling. I did something useful with my powers for the first time in a while that did not cause anyone to die. It felt amazing, even more than my buzz. It gave me a moment of purpose that I didn't want to lose.

Suddenly I had more questions. “You guys went after him? What was your plan?”

Five looked down. “Well, a few of us stalked his house for clues but we'd left before this happened. Allison found where Harold Jenkins had Vanya but she headed there by herself. We found her like this.”

I looked back at the woman on the table, Allison didn't deserve this. “Wait, where’s Vanya now?”

“We have no clue,” Diego said.

This couldn’t be any worse, one sister was on the brink of death and the other was nowhere to be found. Just what has this Harold Jenkins done to the Umbrella Academy?

Pogo tried to get us to relax a bit. “You all should try and get some sleep, converse in the morning.” I wanted to take him up on the offer but I know that the others wouldn’t. He should’ve known, no one here ever rests. We had one last mission as a group and it was how to stop the apocalypse and clearly time was ticking.

…

Taglist

@aloflapse

@isomehowexist

@elenalovestoread

@miscrying

@rockyeatrock

@gabriella-aesthetic

@dakotapaigelove

@solarbeanz

@theorginalone111

@water-hemlock18

@tialovesyoutoo

@bunnychano3o

I am back with the next chapter! Were you able to guess what the chapter was about?

We're ramping up to the end. And when we get there I will give you some more backstory of.. well you. Powers and maybe if you have any like other questions I will do a short qna and start season 2!

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cybercasket · 6 months ago

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Guys. Guys Ben Drowned's canon last name isn't actually Lawman

I've known this for a while, and more I think about it, the more it makes me feel like I should say something 😭

It was a misconception that started with an older version of Ben's page on the Jadusable Wiki. (It was never used for any non-ARG version of Ben prior to this.) I remember spotting Lawman being used as Ben's last name around 2016-2018 or so, and it has been edited out of his page since 2020. (It was on the page they have for the dead child rather than the Network/entity. I think it might've happened before they moved off Fandom wiki, because I think I remember seeing comments and their new wiki doesn't have those).

During the second arc (2011-2012), Jadusable mailed some bonus material to people who donated to him. One of these bonus materials was a section from a newspaper, which describes the murder-suicide of two members of the Lawman family along with their son, with some tampering to the article that appears to have been done by BEN.

You can zoom into the image and read it, or check out it's page on the wiki here (which I highly recommend as it has some added information, like what all the censored words are.) It's a very interesting piece of lore that's fun to analyze--however, I wouldn't recommend reading it if you're super squeamish or sensitive to graphic details related to death. (The method of the killing itself isn't mentioned.)

While this seems to be about Ben on the surface, it's actually not. The only way we can tell is by the date of the newspaper: In the column to the left of the "Spring Is In The Air!" paragraph, the year 2011 is mentioned, but we know that Ben died on 4/23/2004. The wording of the Lawman event feels recent (as if they're talking about an event a few months prior), when Ben's death would've been far gone by now.

With what's likely BEN tampering on the top right (where they creatively use block-out poetry to say "You shouldn't have done that," among many other things) combined with the mention of someone's son dying, it makes a ton of sense that the wiki editors assumed that Ben is a member of this Lawman family that appears here. At some point, screenshots of the wiki ended up being circulated and the larger Creepypasta fandom accepted Lawman as being Ben's "real" last name.

Lawman is actually the last name of a different (and much less relevant) character, Tyler, who appears briefly in the first and third arcs. It's not entirely clear what happened to him or his family, and I think the Newspaper Article is intended to be fun bonus material for Jadusable's donators rather than something that's meant to supply important information about the ARG characters--something like Ben's last name would be crucial for puzzles and passwords, and would give the 50 donators who received the article an unfair advantage (and Jadusable isn't the type of creator who'd be okay with that). Regardless, it carries some interesting implications about the Behavioral Event Network, and Matt's initials are also here for some reason. It's probably one of the most head-spinning materials in the whole game.

#ben drowned #benjamin lawman #ben lawman #ben drowned arg #This is like 35% of why I didnt play in 2020 btw there was like a 2 month period where I thought the Moon Children just merced Ben's dad #I'm sorry if this post ends up being someone's introduction to the ARG because I don't know what the fuck is going on here either #creepypasta #matt hubris #jadusable #jeff the killer #lost silver #slenderman #LIKE IVE KNOWN ABOUT THIS FOR YEARS AND IM STILL LIKE??? DID EVENT NETWORK DO THIS????? WHY IS MATT THERE????? WHAT #The time where the 'BEN makes people kts' headcanon became real for 2.5 seconds #I think Matt is here because BEN has a history of just saying the most cryptic shit about Matt specifically #People hc them as friends but I legitimately think they hate his ass #because why were they on that 'YOURTURN MATT' in arc 1 when he hasnt even had his character introduction yet. Diabolical #Ik theres that part in arc 2 where Matt is like 'I dont know what happened to my dear friend Ben... He ran away :(' but then BEN is like #'Why are you lying 🤥🤥🤥'#Lowkey thats a whole other post but also the alternative is that Matt is in the Network which doesn't make sense because Network and Matt #literally interact as separate entities throughout the entire story

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dyaz-stories · 8 months ago

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who are we to fight the alchemy? || Gojo Satoru x Kagome Higurashi (1)

summary: All Kagome wanted to do was go home, after her friends made her go out to go clubbing. As a result, she had no choice but to go through Shibuya, on Halloween night of all nights.

Sometimes, it only takes one person to change everything.

warnings: canon-typical violence, angst, eventual fluff, eventual romance, fix-it fic (kind of), BAMF Kagome Higurashi, Adult Kagome Higurashi

word count: 6.3k

A/N: this is a crossover pairing I've ben obsessed with recently, so here is the first chapter of a story that's all vibes with little plot. I hope you have fun and it can heal other's hearts after all the harm jjk caused all of us!

Also posted on Ao3 and fanfiction.net if you prefer reading on other websites

All Kagome had wanted to do that night was get home. If anything, she was quietly fuming at the thought that she had, again, let Eri, Ayumi and Yuka talk her into going out, only to be met with thorough disappointment and boredom, and she wanted nothing more than to get back to the comfort of her bed.

Upon coming back from the Feudal Era, she had reveled in the feeling of safety, in the fact she no longer had to risk her life or see her friends be gravely injured, in no longer having the weight of the world on her shoulders, in the mundane pleasures of the modern life. Time had gone by since then, though, with the well never letting her through again, and though she had accepted it and moved on, now…

Well. Now, she may or may not be a little… bored.

The modern world had its oddities, too. Though yokai were few and far between, particularly in Tokyo, as the remaining ones preferred the empty forests and mountains, there were creatures roaming the world. They looked somewhat like yokai, but were unintelligent, for the ones she’d seen, strictly malevolent, and, from what she could tell, non-living.

They also instinctively steered clear of her and, as she’d confirmed for herself, they could not resist even the smallest contact with spiritual energy. No need for spiritual arrows, even coming in contact with her was unbearable for the weaker ones. As for the stronger ones, while they also could not withstand her touch, it was still more efficient to use arrows — but not necessary, not in the way it had been with yokai.

She wasn’t sure what these things were. Since becoming a teacher, she’d gotten used to cleaning the high school of them, as they appeared frequently, and discreetly freeing her students of them. After a few years of that, the school had started to feel… purified, with the creatures’ appearance becoming rarer and rarer.

“The atmosphere feels much better in the school, don’t you think, Higurashi?” one of her colleagues had asked her recently. “I don’t know what it is, but it’s gotten much brighter in here, I think. Even the students feel it!”

She’d hummed and smiled, but hadn’t commented on it.

That was one of the more interesting aspects of her life these days. Going clubbing on Halloween night with her high school friends, on the other hand… wasn’t.

She cursed under her breath as she wedged her way through the crowd outside of Shibuya. Maybe she’d have been better off calling a cab, but her small salary as a teacher, paired with the rising cost of life in Tokyo, meant that she’d be feeling the ripple of that for far too long. So, even if just the thought of the sea of human bodies down there exhausted her, she started making her way down, deep into the belly of the station.

She had just reached the top of the stairs to the last level, where she hoped to catch a subway soon enough, when she felt it.

Something was coming down. She lifted her head, only to be, of course, met with nothing but the ceiling. Even without seeing it, she felt its power extending, caging the whole building, and she felt it sealing as it reached the floor. Her breath caught painfully in her throat, heartbeat racing as she glanced around, trying to understand what was happening.

“Yeah, so I told him— Can you hear me? Hey, do you— Hello? Shit, my call cut off,” a young man muttered beside her.

Soon, everyone was echoing the same feeling — calls cutting off, SMS not sending, no Internet, no signal, no signal, no signal.

And Kagome couldn’t see anything, just try to keep breathing through the oppressive feeling.

She hadn’t experienced something like that since the three days she had spent inside the Jewel. The longest, worst days of her life.

She’d never thought she would have to deal with something like that again. But, unable to move, stuck between the bodies of thousands of others, as everyone slowly came to realize that no trains were coming and they couldn’t leave the building, she felt tears well up in her eyes.

I don’t have time for that, she thought, forcing them back and tightening her jaw to keep her lower lip from trembling. There had to be something she could do, and she refused to stand there, weak and useless, as whatever had caused this to happen decided what to do with them.

Except she couldn’t see anything.

She managed to take a few steps more, craning her neck in hope of spotting something others might not be able to see, when she bumped into a broad man.

“Sorry,” she said sheepishly, “if I could just—”

“Listen, lady,” he said, turning around a glaring at her, sweat dripping down his forehead, “no one here can move. So just stay where you are until they fix the issue, alright? No need to try anything. Stay in your goddamn place.”

Then he turned his back on her again, and Kagome stared, blinking slowly.

See, it was in moments like that when she regretted not having a big, strong half-demon with anger issues by her side.

Well, that, and whenever she was making herself ramen.

She hoped he’d found something he liked just as much, in the Feudal Era.

Bumping into the man again — one might say, deliberately pushing him, but Kagome would never —, she slipped through the crowd further, out of reach by the time he turned around to shout at her.

“You bitch!”

Asshole.

There were odd things going on, she realized as she got closer to the trails. She couldn’t see them, but she could feel strong presences, exuding the same energy as the creatures she’d been getting rid off for months, except so much stronger it made it hard to breathe, not unlike Naraku’s miasma — except that she seemed to be the only one to feel it.

The spiritual energy swirled inside her, instinctively wanting to rebel against whatever energy that was — not demonic, nor spiritual… what could it be? — and she pushed it down. She hadn’t let it out fully since the first couple of months of her first year of high school. It brought her unnecessary attention, which she didn’t want to deal with back then, and she had never gotten around to letting it out fully. There had been no need, and her emotions were either to reign in when she didn’t let herself experience everything. With her spiritual energy out, she didn’t have a choice to do that. Still, even when under control, it prickled unpleasantly when that energy infested the air.

“Does anyone know what’s going on?” she asked out loud, to no one in particular.

“No clue, but there are some dudes on the tracks,” a woman answered, somewhere in front of her. “Maybe that’s why the trains aren’t coming? The security should hurry up to get them off if that’s the case, though.”

“Some dudes?” a tall man in a suit scoffed. “There is one man there. Anyway, I heard the security is waiting for someone to come.”

“Who?” Kagome asked, frowning in confusion. She could not imagine how one man was necessary here.

“Gojo Satoru,” he replied with a shrug. “No clue who that is, though. Heard someone saying that.”

Okay. Very odd. Sounded like a trap for that guy, whoever he is, if you asked her, but there wasn’t much she could do about it from where she, and the doors to the tracks were shut close, which left her with another choice.

Going back.

Whatever it was that she felt fall earlier, she could at least try undoing it. If it was similar in nature to the weird energy of the creatures, it wouldn’t last long in front of her anyway.

Problem was, of course, that everyone was trying to leave, and there just wasn’t any space to go. She managed to make around twenty meters before getting stuck again, back at the bottom of the stairs.

This was starting to get annoying. If Inuyasha was there, she’d hop on his shoulders and they’d jump over the crowd. If Kirara was around, she’d fly over the scene and away from here. If Sango was here, well, she’d probably start mowing down the crowd with her Hiraikkotsu.

Kami, she missed her friends.

“What’s he doing up there?” yet another anonymous voice in the crowd asked.

Tilting her head all the way back, Kagome squinted to try and figure out what is was she was seeing.

If her eyes weren’t betraying her, high up there, where she thought the ground floor of Shibuya was, there was a man. Floating in the air.

She’d seen such things before, of course, but these were yokai. That man, though even from where she was she could tell that there was something incredibly powerful about him, was decidedly human.

And, as she slowly realized because the silhouette was growing closer, coming down.

Fast.

Right above her.

Surely, he wasn’t going to…?

Nope, he definitely was. She ducked with a shriek before his shoe came in contact with her face, and watched as he stepped onto some guy’s head instead, then jumping through the crowd before disappearing behind the gates protecting the rails.

Could that be Gojo Satoru? The guy that was supposed to save everyone here? Really?

Well, she supposed having the power to fly was a step in the right direction — no pun intended — but she did wonder if he could be trusted to save them.

Though, again, she once knew a boy with a heart of gold who would have saved everyone here while absolutely stomping all over them and yelling insults at the people under him too, so maybe she shouldn’t be so prompt to judge.

She still couldn’t move, could only crane her neck and try to glimpse what was happening. And things were happening, which made it all the more frustrating. She could hear the screams, as the gates to the tracks opened and people fell down, she could feel the energy’s rise and fall, she could see a blueish aura developing, become stronger. She both heard and felt, deep in her bones, as one of the things that was never really alive died, and it tugged at her heart in a way it never had before. Somewhere, she thought, a leaf had weathered and died.

She couldn’t explain it though, couldn’t explain anything that was going on there — and things only got worse from there.

She’d stayed composed, mostly, as things went crazier, even she didn’t understand a thing. Fear may have been running through her veins, but it was a feeling she was once used to, and she found that that wasn’t the kind of things you just forgot.

As a train started to approach though, slowing down not far from her, fear was replaced by absolute horror.

She could see the souls seeping out of it, contorting, bent into abnormal shapes, sobbing and begging to anyone who could hear them, for freedom.

Souls weren’t things she usually saw. Sometimes, she noticed someone with a very large one, and she wondered what their story was, if it was anything like hers, but for most people, their shapes espoused their bodies perfectly — they were right where they belonged.

She choked a sob, and it was only when she felt the tears slide down her cheeks that she realized she was crying.

She tried to take a step back, bumped against another body, didn’t comprehend the person’s protest.

Her head

spins.

These

are

all

people.

The subway doors opened slowly, and all Kagome could do was watch as the horrible, misshaped humans with the screaming souls poured out, tearing into the other humans who stood in their paths. One of them rushed towards her, and she grabbed onto it, hands tightening onto its shoulders as it tried to bite her face off.

As she was falling, she felt its body shift under her hands.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered quietly to the young woman whose dead body remained in her arms, as her soul was freed. She saw it shiver, taking back its true form, before floating towards the exit of the station — hopefully, it would be free to do so.

Around her, there was nothing but chaos. The humans that were no longer humans ripping into the ones that still were, bodies falling from the upper floors and coming to crash down near her. She didn’t have time to mourn any of those deaths, nor did she have the power to do much, not as she was. She wished that she had her bow and arrows with her, but they were forgotten in a corner of her grandpa’s shed, where she hadn’t stepped foot in months, maybe years.

That meant she had nothing to channel her spiritual energy into. The only choice that left her, she thought as she slowly rose back to her feet, abandoning the woman’s dead body on the floor, was to let her spiritual energy flow out.

It had been so long since she’d last done that, though, that she had no idea where to start. She had spent so many years repressing that side of her, only using it to protect her students and loved ones, trying to dismiss the years she’d spent in the Feudal Era, trying to fit in and be normal and forget… How could she let it out again, even if she wanted to?

No choice, though, she repeated to herself, clenching her fists. Another monster jumped on her, and with a gentle touch she set it to rest, doing her best to accompany the body of the old man to the floor. Then came a businessman, and a teenager, and a middle-aged woman with a round face, and Kagome couldn’t figure out what to do, not when they kept coming, and they were all people, all with their own lives, their own loved ones, and her eyes burned, and her heart ached, and she needed it all to—

Stop.

When the world froze, she didn’t understand what was happening.

She saw a dash of white to her left, and realized, slowly, that everyone around her had gone completely and utterly still. Former humans, humans, even the oddly shaped creatures she could spot now that the world had gone quiet. She took a step forward, then another.

Nothing moved, except — except that white bolt, running through the people, piercing through the former humans.

It was the man she’d seen earlier, she realized.

Had she been right about his identity then?

Was he Gojo Satoru?

She walked through a world gone still. She could feel, distantly, something pushing against her mind, trying to get in, but the spiritual energy inside her would never let it. It was an instinctive thing, a refusal, and she knew that whatever was happening outside of her just wasn’t compatible with what was going on inside.

She had so many questions, not even the beginning of an answer, but she let them go, walking slowly in the frozen space, bending down to brush her fingers against the back of former humans to get their bodies to turn back into their rightful form. They deserved to find rest as they had existed.

One of them was a young girl, wearing a Sailor Moon costume. She had to have gone out to have fun tonight — and her life had not only been cut short, but horrifically so, through pains Kagome could not even begin to imagine. She bent down, picking up the magical girl staff that was hung at her waist. It was a silly thing, nothing like Miroku’s staff, but holding it like it was a weapon gave her a little bit of strength.

She needed magic too, tonight.

She walked between an odd young man — who she knew was no man at all — with long grey hair and stitches all over his body and face, and a blue creature with what could best be described as a volcano for a head. She didn’t touch them, knew right away that they were not the same as the ones she had gotten rid of at her high school. She needed more information, and that meant that, at least for now, she would not risk making contact.

Plus, there was something by a pillar that had caught her attention.

Well, it didn’t feel like something. Her eyes told her it was a box, but she picked up nothing from it.

No, not nothing — less than nothing, a void, a black hole, an emptiness in a world where nothing was truly empty. It was off, in the same bizarre, fucked up way this whole situation was off, and once more, she couldn’t figure out what on earth was going on here.

The white bolt appeared again on the stairs on the other side of her, on the opposite side of the place through which he’d left, still tearing through the former humans, finally getting to the last one, a couple meters away from her. He didn’t pay any attention to her, probably assuming she was frozen like the rest. The second the head was torn off, the world switched back on.

Kagome looked at him. There was blood all over his clothes and hands, dripping from a spot on his cheek. The bluest eyes she’d ever seen appeared to shine under white locks of hair that clung to his forehead. He was panting painfully, shoulders slinking down with each exhale, chest rising up and down. He was a handsome man, but that wasn’t what stuck out to her right now. No, she thought of how he looked tired. She thought of how he had just allowed the souls of hundreds, maybe of thousands of those humans to go free, and carried that burden on his shoulders forever now. She thought of all the people that were alive now, thanks to him. She thought of how he’d done it all alone, and her heart ached.

All of her important battles, she’d fought with all of her friends by her side.

His eyes darted to the box, which was sitting between him and her, and all of a sudden, eyes snap open on the box, as the nothingness around it expanded.

The white-haired man’s eyes widened, and he spun around, starting to get away — when another man appeared. Long black hair, traditional clothing, stitches on his forehead, and something so deeply, deeply wrong about him that even after everything she’d seen that night, it still made Kagome’s stomach churn.

“Satoru!” he said cheerfully, confirming Kagome’s suspicions about the man’s identity. “Long time no see.”

The white-haired man froze, and almost right as that happened, the box started to shake.

Kagome’s body moved on instinct. Her gut telling her that something bad was about to happen, her knowledge that she could stop it, her deep conviction the white-haired man deserved to have someone on his side, it all took over, and she couldn't have stopped to think about it if she wanted to.

Just as the box was launching itself forward, she’d stepped in front of it, raising a hand. Her back collided with that of the white-haired man, so she was certain whatever was coming wouldn’t get in contact with him, another unconscious decision. Since she didn’t have anything to channel her energy into, all she could do was raise the Sailor Moon staff she’d grabbed earlier. It wasn’t anything much, but she could still push her energy through there, using it to shape it as she wished to — until she figured how to actually let it out.

“Kekkai!”

Barriers had never been her specialty. Kikyo and Miroku might have excelled at them, but her powers mostly manifested in an offensive way, not defensive. In this case though, she only wanted to shield the two of them, not a whole building, like she’d tried — and failed — to do at her school a few times. This was much more within her capabilities, even with such a small staff as her only tool.

The box shrieked like it was in pain when it hits the barrier, and her spiritual energy started pouring into the barrier, through the staff, as it purified it. A lesser priestess could have been drained in an instant. Kagome? She felt energized. As the power left her body, used as it was intended to, it felt like she finally had room to breathe.

The box fell to the floor, eyes closed again. Defeated, if only for now. Around it, space was back to normal.

Wow. Not too bad for someone who sucked at barriers, huh?

“Are you okay?” she asked, whirling around to look at the man, a hand naturally coming to rest on his shoulder.

She was met with wide blue eyes that seemed to be able to look straight through to her soul. They were cautious, inquisitive, something cold about them, but more than anything, they were curious.

“You’re conscious,” he noted, tilting his head to the side, fascination growing more and more obvious on his face.

Well, yeah, of course she was, she thought at first — until she realized, glancing around them, that all the humans looked frozen in place, bodies slack though they were still standing, mouths open, eyes dull and empty.

Why…?

“A priestess,” the man with the black hair said thoughtfully. “I thought you were all extinct.”

They weren’t, and she knew for a fact that she was far from the last one. Despite that, she doubted that this was an information she should be giving him, so she held her tongue, even if she wanted nothing more than to throw in his face how wrong he was. The white-haired man turned to face him, deliberately placing himself between him and Kagome, as if shielding her from him.

“Now that that’s dealt with,” he said, tone light and breezy, “how about you tell me who you are?”

The man’s eyes remained cold, but the corner of his lips lifted to form a smile — one that appeared quite painful to put up. Kagome wasn’t sure what was going on here, but if she had to guess, she’d say she might have thrown a wrench in that dude’s plans.

Good.

“You know me too well to ask that, Satoru,” he said. His tone was soft.

Satoru scoffed.

“Please. As if I’d be fooled.” His eyes hardened, and Kagome could feel his muscles clenching. He was preparing to throw himself into battle. “My Six Eyes might be telling me you’re Geto Suguru, but my heart and soul know otherwise. Who are you?”

Six Eyes…? Oh, whatever. That seemed pretty low on the list of her priorities right now, actually.

The man started to raise a hand, but let it fall back down to his side.

“Maybe we’ll have that conversation again, at a later time, Satoru,” he said sweetly. “For now, I’m afraid we’ll have to backtrack.”

“Are you kidding me?” the volcano dude hissed, not far from him. “Is that it? Just because some bitch appeared?”

Rude.

“I don’t know who he’s supposed to be,” Kagome said, tiptoeing to try and get closer to Satoru’s ear so he could hear her, “but there’s a presence in his head.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder, blue eyes filled with confusion now.

“How can you know that?”

Kami. Why was everyone intent on being so disrespectful to her tonight?

“No time for this, Jogo,” the black haired man — Geto, was it? — chimed. “I would advise you leave while you can.”

Satoru spun back around.

“None of you are leaving this place,” he announced calmly.

In just an instant, he was gone from in front of Kagome, launching himself at both Jogo and Geto, with a speed that made it impossible for her to follow. Her eyes left the fight once it looked to her like he could take both of them at once, and focused instead on the third bystander — the one with the grey hair.

He looked at the fight with vague interest, and she thought he might not be as invested in the result as the others, maybe not as dangerous as the rest — until he walked to one of the frozen humans, a woman with a long dress and short black hair, and she saw the shape of her soul and body change into something that couldn’t be recognized as a human.

When he let go of her, the woman, who looked nothing like a woman now, threw herself into the fight. It took less than a second for Satoru to kill her, but already the grey-haired non-human was moving on to the next one.

Changing these people’s bodily integrity, wounding them so deep in their very essence they couldn’t survive it, all to kill them.

Something started burning within Kagome.

“You’re the one who’s been doing that to those poor souls,” she hissed between her teeth.

He glanced at her, eyes widening as a big smile formed on his lips.

“You can see souls?” he asked, sounding genuinely delighted. “Finally someone who can appreciate what I’m doing!”

“Appreciate?” She was trembling with anger. She felt her spiritual energy banging against the walls of her mind, the ones she didn’t remember how to lower fully, as had been natural to her when she was a teenager, and she could feel them getting ready to collapse. “You destroyed them. All they can hope for now is death. You’re a monster.”

He laughed, light and happy, and his eyes were warm when they focused on her.

“Thank you,” he hummed. “Maybe you’ll appreciate what I’m going to do to you?”

He was in front of her before she could blink.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m sure Gojo will kill you soon. But before that, I’m going to make you so, so disgusting.”

Both of his hands closed over her face, almost delicately, as if he was cradling a small animal within them.

Almost immediately, she felt him pull on her soul. It wasn’t a new feeling exactly, not to her, though his attempts at shaping it were. She could tell it was expanding, knew, on some level, that in order to fit her body, it was forced to make itself smaller than it was. That was what that old witch had said, too — her soul was much, much larger than usual.

She heard him let out a sound of surprise.

“Oh,” he commented, obviously delighted, “oh, I’m going to have so much fun with you! Maybe I’ll keep you!”

As he pulled at her soul, she could feel his — if you could even call that a soul. She could see all the shapes it had been forced into, found it distended and fragile and about to tear. More than anything, she found it repulsive. It tried, clumsily, to change hers. But she was never going to let anything or anyone else toy with her soul, ever again.

“Get you filthy hands off my soul,” she snarled, wrapping her fingers around his wrists.

She would never have bested him in a purely physical fight, but this wasn’t one, and he was the only one to blame.

He was laughing at first as she forced him back.

Then the laughter turned into screams.

“It burns!” he protested, like a child discovering fire for the first time. “Stop it, it burns!”

She could feel it, too, her spiritual energy piercing through him as easily as a knife through butter. She forced him to his knees, and as he looked up at her, eyes terrified now, she knew he saw it. Her soul, wrapping itself around her in a wide sphere, dwarfing him and his poor excuse of a soul completely.

“That’s… beautiful,” he whispered.

Even then, he couldn’t resist trying to change it, couldn’t help himself. And so, as Kagome called it back to her, felt its warmth as it invested her body completely, she felt no guilt, no shame, not even rage anymore.

She was merely doing what needed to be done. This creature was an anomaly existing to cause chaos. It wasn’t a yokai that played its own part in nature, not a human, not even truly living. A plant warranted more respect than this.

So, through her palms, she pushed her spiritual energy on him, in him, ignored the burning it caused her. Through and through, with no regards for the amount of energy she used, she purified him. There was so much pain inside of him, and she let it pass through her, let it turn back into what it was, just an emotion, just something human that should have always stayed that way, never taken that form.

When she reached the end, all there was left was a sense of relief.

He smiled at her.

“That’s not so bad,” he whispered before vanishing.

Kagome fell to her knees, heaving. It had been years since she’d last used her powers like that. Glancing down at her hands, she saw her palms were red and burnt, and she closed her trembling fingers over them carefully.

It took her long seconds of trying to regulate her breathing and to calm down the energy within her — which was telling her it wanted out, still so much left inside her, no matter how much of it she had just used up — before she realized how quiet the station had gotten.

Glancing up, she saw Satoru approaching her, lips twisted into a annoyed expression.

“Where—” She realized her mouth was painfully dry, swallowed. “Where are…?”

“Geto’s gone,” he said, clicking his tongue. “Used the other one to escape.”

He’d gotten rid of Jogo, which had barely been a work-out, but whatever or whoever was puppeteering his friend’s body had managed to escape him.

Which delayed the moment when he’d kill it. He couldn’t say that thrilled him.

“Now,” he said, ridding himself of those thoughts to crouch in front of her. “Tell me. Who are you?”

She blinked at him.

“Kagome,” she answered. “Kagome Higurashi.”

He studied her. The name was unfamiliar, not any exorcist family he’d ever heard of. On top of that, she didn’t produce any cursed energy. It was almost reminiscent of Fushiguro Toji — except Toji had been a void, and she definitely wasn’t one. Whatever she exuded was warm and gentle.

“You’re not an exorcist,” he said finally.

“Well,” she said, glancing up at the ceiling thoughtfully, “I’ve dealt with ghosts and yokai — demons, if you’d like. So, I guess technically, you could say I am an exorcist…?”

She watched as a wide grin formed on his lips. Reaching up behind him, he wrapped a blindfold around his face, hiding his eyes.

“He called you a priestess, though, didn’t he?” he asked, fiddling behind his head to tie it.

“I guess you could say that too,” she shrugged. It wasn’t like she’d ever spent that much time working at a temple. Really, it was just a title to describe her ability, one she didn’t feel that strongly about. “I’ve been called a miko, too, but— I’m sorry, do you need help with that?”

He stilled his awkward attempts at tying the thing behind his head, examining her — she thought — from behind what looked like a thick blindfold.

Odd. Very odd, in fact, but so low on the list of ‘odd’ she’d dealt with today that it would feel silly to ask about it.

“My oh my,” he said once he’d gotten his bearings back, “is that what you’re into, then? Blindfolding guys you’ve just met?”

Oh God. She might have missed Miroku, but not nearly enough to be happy that this was where he was going right away.

“Now, when you said yokai, were you talking about curses?” he asked, having apparently succeeded with his blindfold.

“What do you mean ‘curses’?” she frowned, mind immediately going to the Wind Tunnel. “I’ve known people who were cursed, but I mostly meant… Well. Yokai.”

“Alright, Kagome,” he said, and her brow furrowed some more at the immediate familiarity. “I’m going to have a lot more questions for you, but I think my people are going to get here soon, and it’s probably better if you’re not here when they get there.”

Ominous. Another question to add to the list.

“What do we say we get out of here?” he asked, shooting her a cocky grin.

“Um. Sure, but how do you— Ah!”

Without a warning, he’d pulled her to her feet and, wrapping a strong arm around her waist, he’d pressed her against him as he— took off, basically. It wasn’t her first time flying, but it still caught her off guard. She wrapped her arms around his neck without giving it a second a thought, almost jumped back when he let out an outraged gasp.

“We’ve just met!” he protested with fake modesty. “Do you always hug strangers?”

She glared, tightening her hold so she didn’t feel like she’d fall down the second he’d let go.

“Do you?”

He let out a light laugh as he flew up. He kept her tightly pressed against his hard chest, arm not once faltering. He might have been a stranger, but for the first time since the beginning of the night, Kagome felt fully safe.

Eventually, they made it out of the building and he distanced himself from it, taking her to a nearby rooftop.

“Alright then,” he said, setting her down. “Call a cab.”

She groaned. After the way she’d spent her evening, it felt very, very unfair to have to live on a teacher’s salary.

He watched her as she reluctantly got her phone out, then sighed while she stared at it.

“Do you want me to call you one?” he asked.

Did she? If he was like Miroku, she’d never hear the end of it. On the other hand, well, she didn’t know what that weird box thing was, but she didn’t think it would have helped him, so…

“So, you’re an exorcist, right?” she questioned, looking at him. “Does that pay well?”

He seemed surprised for a second, then laughed again, throwing his head back as if she’d said the funniest thing ever.

“I can’t complain,” he said, pulling out his phone and pressing a few touches on the screen. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Thanks,” she sighed. “It was nice meeting you…?”

“Gojo Satoru.” Then he paused, as if for dramatic effect, and his grin widened when she didn’t react. “Well, I’ll be in touch, Ka-go-me,” he said, stretching her name as if he was testing out how it felt on his tongue.

She opened her mouth to ask him a question — she wasn’t even sure which one, there were so many on her ever-growing list, but before she could, he’d raised a hand, and then he’d vanished. She didn’t think he’d run, though, no, he was just— gone. There one second, away the next.

She had no idea what on earth had been tonight.

The news talked about some sort of terror attack in Shibuya that night. She let herself weep then, mourning all the lives that were lost, wishing them a safe travel to the other side, hoping the next life would prove kinder to them.

She knew she would not have that long to get used to those thoughts, to that world that she had only caught glimpses of until then. She knew that whatever had started in Shibuya, this was only the beginning.

Next time, she would need to be ready.

“So you’re saying that Geto Suguru, whose body you refused to have destroyed last year, has come back, possibly as a curse himself, and was responsible for the attack on Shibuya?”

Gojo scratched the back of his head, failed to stifle a yawn.

“It wasn’t Geto Suguru,” he answered with a shrug. ‘A presence in his head’, Kagome had said. Not that he had any clue what it meant, of course. He’d had to look into that, but he couldn’t do that while these old farts kept interrogating him about something none of them could have even hoped to achieve. “Are we done here?”

“We’ll see what the consequences are for your actions, which have endangered all the lives of those living in Tokyo, will be,” the distant voice boomed. “For now, we have one more question.”

On a screen, a camera recording of Kagome appeared.

“This woman. While we lost sight of her, it appeared she was not affected by the use of your domain extension. Who is she?”

Gojo stared at the screen with fake concentration.

“Oh, that’s what I forgot to do! I didn’t ask her that.”

There was heavy silence on the other side.

“We will find her identity,” the voice threatened. “You are only delaying the inevitable.”

“Well, you should tell me once you do! I sure would like to know who she is, too,” Gojo answered with a shrug. “Now, if we’re done here, some of us are actually working hard, and need to rest.”

He waved as he turned his back on the Higher-Ups, moving towards the doors with some wide strides. They didn’t bother answering him, and he didn’t bother looking back. He could have been worried about Kagome, but all they had to go off of was the grainy footage of a damaged surveillance camera. On top of that, even if they tried to find a better picture somewhere, doing that while looking at the footage of Shibuya on Halloween night would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Maybe they’d be able to pull it off eventually, but it would take them time.

He was sure that he would get to her first.

It's been a while since I had as much fun writing a fic as I did this one! I'm super excited for this pairing and I have a ton of ideas for them. This story is really just so I get to write for them before I finish outlining other ideas I have for him that will have a little more plot than this. I hope you liked this, please consider supporting your writer (me, I'm your writer) by reblogging, commenting and/or sending me an ask about it! I thrive on interaction, and also I would LOVE to talk about this pairing. See you in the next chapter!

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ashintheairlikesnow · 11 months ago

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hey hey hey I have had a hell of a day (Actually Hell) because I did too many fun things (a problem apparently) and then also we put up the christmas tree leading to the inevitable christmas tree installation arguments (they pop up every year like clockwork!)

anyway i have been overstimulated and stressed (just want to emphasize that there is NO pressure here whatsoever! id like to avoid any semblance of that actually and I know you're already working on 12 days so take your time) and it would be very cathartic to see chris dealing with similar issues (the Wonderful guy. we are pretty similar.) thanks a lot for reading this, even if you don't write anything !

Sorry this took so long, Anon! I swear I've been trying to get this written for literally almost two months now

CW: Some references to Chris's past, overstimulation, anxiety

"Hey, where did Chris go?" Laken blinks and looks around, but the living room of the house they rent - filled with laughing, happy people - shows no sign of Chris's telltale lavender hair with its new-penny copper roots.

One of Brit's friends just shrugs at them and gestures, vaguely, in the direction of the kitchen. "Dunno. He wandered off a while ago, maybe that way?"

"Oh, okay. Huh." Laken steps back, the circle of laughing people closing up tight as soon as they do. Their dark eyes scan the room, but there's no sign of him.

He'd been doing great - all but holding court, one of the most popular people at the party. He's sort of famous, since the Olympics, and people had been peppering him with questions and compliments, crowding around wanting nothing more than to be friends with the ex-pet who stood up to the bad guys on live TV. They'd seen him dancing, too, the music loud enough to nearly make the walls shake. The easy, unselfconscious dancing they loved in him the most.

He'd seemed to be enjoying himself, at the time, but...

Where has he gone?

They weave around people, stopping to pick up an ornament that has fallen off the tree. The scent of pine is subtle and ever-present, and they carefully work the ornament's little loop back over a branch, ruefully watching a couple of pine needles come loose and drift down. The damn thing is already starting to turn a little brown around its edges, thanks to Laken's roommate having insisted on buying it literally the day before Thanksgiving.

Laken doesn't even celebrate Christmas, not since they stopped going to Mass on Christmas Eve years and years ago. Still, in a house they rent with three others, they're the only one who doesn't at least pay lip service to the holiday.

And even if they don't give a fuck about Christmas, they do like having an excuse to throw a party.

The tinsel wrapped in spirals around, over, and below the ornaments glitters in the light, and the look makes them think of Chris, and how his eyes have always looked just the same, to them, when they're out at night and the moon hits the green of his irises just right.

Their search leads them to Ben, contentedly sitting on the couch, a drink in one hand and his phone in the other, quietly reading something there while the party is in full swing around him. He glances up and then instinctively, immediately, uses a finger to push his glasses back up the bridge of his nose. "Hey, Laken. What's up?"

"Is Akio not coming tonight?"

"Oh... no." Ben blushes - it's adorable, and Laken can't help the smile playing around their lips. "He's got some kind of meeting with the gymnastics team, or his coaches? Or... something like that. He said sorry, though."

"Nah, no problem. But, hey, so. Uh, have you seen Chris, like within the last ten minutes or so??"

Someone puts Christmas music on and Laken shudders as they hear that damn 80s pop song start up again. If they have to hear that fucking song one more time...

"Nope. Not in a while." Ben shrugs, taking a drink. Whatever he has in that cup is pinkish-red and probably far more alcoholic than it tastes. Laken's roommate had insisted on a signature cocktail. "You could check outside? Sometimes when there's a lot of people, to Chris it's... too much."

Laken nods, still scanning the crowd, but their stomach knots a little with the first hit of real anxiety. Ben is right, Chris can get overwhelmed by too much noise and movement, but also he's been drinking tonight - they saw the same red punch in a cup in his hands earlier - and he has a tendency to get... hazy, when he drinks. Flirty in ways that aren't natural to him. Willing to let people hug him that he doesn't like, unable to bring himself to stop them. Sometimes his stammer smooths out, which makes people who don't know him feel more comfortable and people who do know him nervous. He starts tipping his head to the side in a way that makes the sweep of his growing-out hair hide the scar on his forehead, biting his lower lip when he smiles. It makes Laken feel a little sick to see it happen and realize Chris doesn't even notice when he's doing it.

The last thing they need is to have to come up with an explanation for Chris losing track of himself again, or why he's eating olives off the charcuterie board Brit brought knowing damn well he'll just go to the bathroom and get sick all over the place again, or... fuck, what if somebody hits on him and he's too drunk to stop it?

That hasn't happened since college, but...

They pull their phone out, uneasily checking for a text, but there's nothing. If he went outside, he'd text, right? He does, he always does. Texts can be easier and Chris is always a little nervous about being outside alone.

He insisted on coming tonight, said he was feeling good lately, but-... what if-...

They flinch when fingers touch their arm, only to see Ben must have stood up when they weren't looking. He slips his own phone into his jacket pocket and looks Laken over more closely. "Hey. It's okay, he's probably fine. You know he gets weird when parties are really going. It's like a light switch, enough to too much, I totally get it. It's why I'm on the couch fucking around on Kindle instead of, you know... talking to people." Ben says it like talking to people is literal hell, and... okay, Laken can see how that might be the case. "He probably just needed to get away from it and wandered off."

"Uh, yeah. I know." Laken rubs at the back of their neck, fingers moving through the soft, shorn undercut beneath their longer black waves. "I'm sure that's it. Just... you know, sometimes he... when he gets nervous..."

"I got you." They adore Ben, sometimes, for how often they don't have to finish the sentences they don't want to say. He knows what words haven't yet spilled, unwilling. Sometimes he acts like he belongs to us, not like he loves us. Sometimes I can't trust him to find his way back on his own. Sometimes I feel like Jake, and I hate feeling like Jake.

Words die in their throat.

Ben squeezes their arm, gently. "Let's split up and search around. I'll go outside, you go around the house, okay? We verify how he is, then whichever one finds him tells the other. Sound good?" Ben smiles, and Laken relaxes a little, finding a smile for him in return.

"Yeah, sounds good. Thanks, Ben."

"No problem." Ben has always understood Chris, thanks to his little brother being similar in some ways. He understands Laken's worry, too, because better than anyone else here - he knows how Chris sometimes gets lost in his past, especially if he's drinking, worse the maybe twice Laken's ever seen him try an edible or a pill.

What if he got drunk and someone offered him something and he took it? Drunk Chris sometimes isn't a Chris who can easily turn down anything he's offered.

This party was a stupid idea.

Laken takes a deep breath and squares their shoulders.

Chris is not a child.

He is a goddamn grown man and Laken is not his keeper. They're not his parent and they're not a babysitter. They're definitely not his fucking... owner or whatever the bastards that hurt him would have called it. They're his partner. He can handle himself, better than they could if they'd lived his life, and they need to trust him to either know his limits and to get away if he can't say no, or to come to them if he wants to ask for help. Otherwise, they're not any better than the bullshit he's been buried in for longer than he's known them.

Ben goes to check outside, slipping silently out the sliding door onto the back porch where a small crowd has congregated in a cloud of skunky smoke, while Laken heads upstairs, peeking their head in to room after room with no sign of him anywhere. They see some movement under a pile of coats, but that's... definitely not Chris, based on the very female voices who yell at them to give them some fucking privacy, please.

"Sorry, Brit," Laken calls, closing the door tightly. "And, um, Leigh. Just looking for Chris-"

"Well, he isn't in here or we'd have kicked him out already," Brit says, cranky but without any real anger in her voice. Laken doesn't recognize the redhead whose eyes pop up from beneath the pile of coats next to her. "Check a different room."

"Yeah, I will. Uh... keep having fun, I guess-"

"That's the plan! Now leave, please!"

The door latches as they close it, and they exhale. There's one room left, at the end of the hall, and they can hear a familiar murmuring from behind the door when they press their ear up against it.

Laken knocks, rapping gently with their knuckles, and turns the knob when they hear no answer - but no demand to stay out either. The murmuring goes silent. They sigh, and the door swings open, light cutting across the carpet until it reveals their wayward boyfriend.

No one has claimed this bedroom yet, so it's bare and empty except for a couple unpacked cardboard boxes, Brit's exercise bike by the window, a couple of her yoga mats, a laundry basket with a few folded towels, and a bare mattress the last housemate had left behind on the floor when they moved out.

Laken's lips press together, eyes scanning the room. Chris's phone is on the mattress, along with an empty beer bottle, but Chris isn't. "Chris? Cariño?"

A muffled rustling makes them jump, heart in their throat, and then they realize the sound came from the closet, where the folding doors are closed. Laken pulls them open to reveal Chris curled up, knees nearly to his chin, an open bottle clutched in one hand, his chewy necklace in the other. He'd chosen the bat one tonight, and his hand is closed around it in such a tight fist Laken can tell his knuckles are white even in the dark.

Chris doesn't look at them. He's swaying, rocking forward and back, his eyes focused on something far, far away from them. There's red lines on his left wrist, where he's dug his nails in, scratching not quite deep enough to draw blood, but close. Laken takes a deep breath, shifting into a crouch.

"Talk to me, Chris."

"No." The answer is flat, and they watch his thumb rub over the little nub of the silicone bat's nose, the points of its tiny ears. "No, no, no. No."

At least he's saying it out loud.

That alone makes the knot of anxiety in their chest start to loosen. If he can say no, he isn't gone, maybe just... standing a little farther back, inside his own head, than the surface.

"Okay. Okay, that's fine. No talking, that's fine. Are you okay, baby?" Laken keeps their voice just above a whisper and lays their hand on the wood trim that frames this shitty excuse for a closet, the floor creaking under them. "You... kind of vanished on me, there."

Chris's eyes flick to them and then away again. "Loud," He manages, and he sounds like he's forcing the word out between gritted teeth. Maybe he is. "Too, too, too... too loud. Too much, too... many."

"I guess Ben called it." Laken sighs, pulling out their phone and sending Ben a quick text that they found Chris and everything's fine. they get a thumbs-up in reply almost immediately. Ben must have been as anxious as they are, if he was just watching for their text to come in. "Do you want me to call Jake to come get you, or..."

"No!" He snaps it, and Laken tries not to wince. He's just struggling with the noise of the party, they tell themself, he's not actually angry. Chris almost never gets angry, and even then it's only at himself. Which... is worse, somehow. "No. Just... Quiet, it's... it's it's quiet."

"Right. Do you want me to stay with you? Be quiet with you?"

He shakes his head, but he doesn't say anything else. His mouth moves, but no further sounds come out.

"Chris, did..." They want to ask, did someone say something to you? Sometimes people said things, referenced pets or something in a way that set him off. But even if someone had... he probably wouldn't tell them, at least not now, not when every word seemed to have to filter through layer after layer of self-protection in his mind. "Never mind. Is there anything I can do for you? Water, or..."

He shakes his head. "No. Just. Um. Quiet... quiet, now. Please?"

"Yeah." Laken leans over and presses a kiss to his hair. He tips his head against their lips and they exhale in relief. "I love you, Chris. Come back if you can, but if you can't, that's okay, too. Just don't hurt yourself, okay? Things should start winding down in a couple hours." They take the little plastic bat and push it against the hand that's still scratching at his shoulder, until he takes hold of it again, pressing it against his mouth and running it back and forth, back and forth.

Chris is quiet, but as they open the door to head back into the hallway, they hear a quiet, "Love, love you," from Chris, barely audible.

They smile as they close the door. Down the hall, the sounds of the party hit them like a brick, beckoning them back to the noise and the cheer and the awful fucking Christmas music still blaring at top volume. Someone yells something out and the whole damn crowd cheers, making Laken wince at it feels nearly deafening.

Maybe Chris has the right idea.

@finder-of-rings @endless-whump @arlin-always-writing @newandfiguringitout @doveotions @pretty-face-breaker @gonna-feel-that-tomorrow @boxboysandotherwhump @oops-its-whump @whumpyourdamnpears @cubeswhump @burtlederp @whump-tr0pes @whumptywhumpdump @whumpiary @orchidscript @outofangband @hackles-up @grizzlie70 @mylifeisonthebookshelf @keeper-of-all-the-random-things

#whump #chris the strawberry blond romantic #recovery whump #recovering whumpee #overstimulation tw #autistic whumpee #referenced alcohol use #laken mamani #referenced dubcon #angst #fluff #comf #I guess this is the one that wins out first of the drafts?#we'll see if kauri or vince wins out next

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brw · 4 months ago

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How would you describe xfans' politics?

I mean, you ultimately can't make any actual generalisations of someone's politics based on what they read and watch. Media can and often does inform people's thoughts and influences them, but you cannot come to any legitimate conclusion of someone's politics based exclusively on what they read. When I criticise "X-Men fans", it is usually done with the understanding that I'm looking at a particularly small, vocal minority; by definition, I am an X-Men fan, because I read a lot of X-Men books.

Reading X-Men comics is not (no matter how much some people imply otherwise) political action. It is not an indicator of politics. Too often, I see people say "Conservative X-Men fans are crazy, they have no reading comprehension! The X-Men have always been left!!" and to be honest, that's giving a lot of X-Men writers way too much credit.

Claremont, as I've talked about before, is a Zionist who based his Magneto characterisation of a Zionist terrorist. His Charles, too, and had both of them meet for the first time in Occupied Palestine. I believe he has also gone on the record as saying that many of his female X-Men characters were based on female IDF soldiers. He also very much so made Storm a cop.

Grant Morrison, beloved X-Men writer, was horrifically racist to Asian people in their comic, most particularly with the portrayal of Dust, and having Magneto be in yellowface for that whole comic. There are other issues with Talia Al Ghul of DC, but that's out of my remit. There's a lot of criticism to be had about the portrayal of black people in their series, too.

John Byrne's many, many issues are more readily discussed, but he's still a massive part of the X-Men lore and history, and describes himself as a "progressive conservative".

And while I don't believe we know very much about their politics, I also don't think that Hickman or Duggan should be paraded around as bastions of leftist fiction, when they really aren't. I'm not saying these writers haven't written leftist things before, but it it is a mistake to say that the X-Men are inherently leftist and inherently progressive, when a lot of X-Men writers are not those things.

I think some people, by virtue of the X-Men being a series about the minority experience, project their own feelings and politics onto the X-Men, and sometimes forget that isn't reality. That's how we get "Magneto was right" as a fandom rally cry, but if you imply that maybe the character based off a Zionist, who canonically lived in Israel, and has created 3 different mutant ethnostates are two facts that inform each other, then you're crazy and ruining everyone's fun.

Anyway. Point being, I don't think you can meaningfully say "ALL X-Men fans are like this", when comics are ultimately nothing that can be used to make conclusions of people's politics. The only thing unique to the X-Men is that the minority metaphor and experience is the core premise of their stories, unlike the Avengers and FF who, while having characters like Ben Grimm and The Vision who undergo similar treatment, are not about that at their core in the same way the X-Men are. The centralisation of minorities makes it easy for the X-Men to feel radical and cutting edge, but they aren't that much, to be honest. Like, they are ultimately a capitalist venture created by a group of predominantly white Americans (although the current X office is more diverse than it has been since, well, ever, and that shouldn't be ignored), and are never going to be as radical as you want because of that. Cyclops is never going to be right the way you want him to be right, because Brian Michael Bendis is not going to be giving the people radical leftist praxis.

#asks #anonymous

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whatyourusherthinks · 4 months ago

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The Killer's Game Review

We didn't get a trailer for this one, but we did get a poster. A physical poster we didn't use. Yeah, we use tv screens to display digital posters, but movie companies will still send us physical posters anyway. The managers just give them away to whoever wants them, so I'm proud to report that I've taken none of them. I'm not posters person. Anyway, this movie was getting savaged by critics. It's got only a 39% of Rotten Tomatoes. Which is actually misleading, since that percentage is the percentage of critics who recommend the movie, not an average of what critics rank the movie. If you want that, look at IMDB, which gave this movie a 5.8 out of 10.

Sigh. Man, how come the action movies this summer sucked? It's been a mostly horror centric year, since we opened up the year with the writer's strike so a lot of projects got delayed and horror movies are easier to make. So I would hope that means the four action movies that came out over the hot months would be good right? Nah half of 'em suck and the other half were just okay. And recently I've been very unenthused about everything I've watched. Yeah, I really liked Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, but I'm starting to realize my enjoyment was heightened by going to see it with my family and making it an event. Not that the quality of the movie has gone down, I think I just overhyped my personal enjoyment. My depression is kicking my ass recently too, so maybe I'm just being a sad sack.

What's The Movie About?

Dave Bautista is Joe Flood, a hitman who finds out he has a terminal illness, so he puts a hit out on himself to end his suffering early. Then he finds out his doctor mixed up the test results.

What I Like.

Well. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice sure got dethroned quickly. This movie gave me the kind of joy I haven't felt since, well, May.

First off, the action is amazing. It's fast paced, well choreographed, and damn fun. All of the hitmen who go after Joe are colorful and have gimmicks, like two brothers who kill their targets with motorbikes. Or a bisexual stripper team. This movie honestly reminded me of the action from The Crow reboot with it's inventiveness and brutality, but it was much more frequent. A lot of this movie kinda reminds me of The Crow if it didn't suck ass, since they also take time to set up Joe's girlfriend who then gets put in peril and he has to save her. But unlike THAT movie, the time it takes is actually interesting, the leads have good chemistry, and they set up way more than just two kids making moony eyes at each other. The characters are a lot of fun. Not only is Joe and his girlfriend a very cute couple, but the various hitmen and side characters are incredibly entertaining. I actually think the story was really good. The set-up seems stupid at the front, which it is, but they go out of their way to justify it and I think it made sense. The depiction of Joe's depression after he gets diagnosed is pretty damn realistic, and I think Dave Bautista nails it. I like the editing and pacing. It is very dynamic and interesting, there's a lot of fade ins and comic panel style compositions, but when it gets to the action they go to more standard camera. It's not a steady cam but it's not too shaky and the cuts are fairly restrained. The movie is funny as well. It's a lot of quips but it still had heart and there's a little bit of physical comedy to spice things up as well.

What I Didn't Like.

But the movie isn't perfect. While all the characters are fun, they are mostly stereotypes. Not just the colorful assassins or side characters, Ben Kingsley plays Joe's contractor who's a Jewish guy and his accent is so thick it felt kinda racist. Not that I'm accusing the movie or anything, I liked all the characters and it feels more like the over the top accents and ridiculous behaviors are there to characterize the hitmen rather than make us hate them or perpetuate a harmful ideal, but that might be why this movie got crapped on critics. Also, it's kinda sloppy in a lot of cases. I thought the movie was really funny, but not every one liner lands. The pacing jumps a bit. And occasionally stuff seems to just happen out of nowhere. And the acting from pretty much everyone except Dave and Sofia Boutella is ehhhhh. Mostly because the actors seem to be the kinds of actors who just play themselves but with a slightly different gimmick each time. Like you don't expect Terry Cruz to be anyone else except Terry Cruz but meaner in this movie. Although the good actors like Ben Kingsley and Alex Kingston seem to be doing the same thing? So I guess it's purposefully? All of these little things really makes the movie feel scrappy instead of amateurish.

Final Summation.

There has only two movie that have come out this year which I wanted to watch a second time in theater. The first was The Fall Guy, which is still the best movie that has come out this year. And the second is this one. The Killer's Game is awesome, don't let the negative critical reception fool you.

#The Killer's Game #Recommended Movies

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shrimplymoray · 1 year ago

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HEHEHE TENA im coming in with another bimbovirus scenario request <3 Eri and Cody celebrating her birthday together in the lab, she’s blowing a small cake and making a sweet wish with him!! thank uuuu <3 (happy birthday to me)

HIHI ERI!!! HOPE YOU WAKE UP TO A GREAT DAY SINCE IT IS YA BDAY!!!!

I had wild ideas for this since u asked, but I think I found the perfect one AKA the one I drew for you. By the way, why don't I share that drawing?

Birthday surprise - BimboVirus (and BEN)

It was coming the day, Cody knew it, and that made him nervous. What day? His stupid assistant's birthday. Eri was not the brightest person, by far, but she was still one of the closest person he had, though not by his choice, per say.

Cody had thought of multiple things he could do for her. Maybe actually teaching something, but that was gonna probably cause the 5th lab fire this week, and the fire extinguisher was running low already. He also could try preparing something for her, but his skills on the kitchen were not as good as one would expect. He was running low on ideas each minute that passed, until he remembered the person that was most likely able to help, much to his displeasure.

"So... You came here to ask me for help, huh? What will I get in return?" BEN asked, with his arms crossed and a grin on his face.

"Listen here I am not asking for help, I am asking for advice, fucknuts. You are one of the only person who know her good, since you track her phone. What do you think would be a good birthday gift?" Cody was red from embarrassment of just having to ask BEN of all people.

"She is a bimbo, dude. Anyone with more than two braincells can think of a pink dress to give her. Unless..." The elf boy went closer to Cody, nudging him with his elbow "you like her, dontya big guy? I can help plan a party for her if I can have a piece of cake too."

"WHAT NO I DON'T. YEAH SHE IS CUTE AND KINDA ABOVE AVERAGE STANDARDS ON APPEARANCE AND IS ENTERTAINING AND... oh shit I really like her..." Cody had to hide his face in his hands " fine you get a piece of cake, just help me with this shit."

Eri had gone back to the manor after going out with Nina, Clockwork and Zero to a birthday shopping spree. Though none of the girls shared the same aesthetic, they managed to have fun shopping each time, which always brightened the bimbo girl. She even bought this super adorbs frilly dress that she thought would look good with the lab coat Sir Cody got her.

Talking about it, she needed to get to the lab, she IS Sir Cody's super adorbs assistant, and he probably was having to handle all that brain consuming paper work. It's her birthday, but she needed to work. And maybe Eri really just wanted to be near Cody, but who could say?

When the girl reached the Lab, though, she heard another voice inside. Was Sir Cody doing an experiment on Toby again? No, the voice was different. Sounded like... BEN?

Cody opened the door to find Eri, which lead him on a spiral of thoughts before he mustered. "Finally you're here. I've been waiting for you to show for... Work. All day. I need you to come with your eyes closed. Don't ask questions."

"Oh okay Sir Cody! Did you... Prepare a surprise for little ol' me? Oh sir Cody..." The girl continued to blabber happily with her eyes closed, while Cody carefully guided her to a spot in the lab. He hoped she wouldn't burn everything accidentally this time.

He had to motion for Ben to put stuff at the right place quietly while he guided her to a beautiful cake that Cody bought.

"Can I open my eyes now?"

"Yeah just don't-"

Eri opened her eyes and let an excited happy scream of the lab being totally decorated in pink and with the beautiful pink cake. Omg did sir Cody do all of this for her? Oh and Ben is there too, what is he doing in here?

"... Overreact." Cody sighed "Me and BEN put this little party to you. For your birthday and stuff... And, uh..."

"Oh sir Cody I loved loved it!! Everything looks amazing! Oh i could give you a kiss from how happy I am!!"

Cody almost choked with what she said, and stood his hands up "not necessary."

"Hey, where is my payment for the help, 'Sir Codyyy~'?" BEN mocked, with a shit eating grin. Oh how Cody hated him right now.

"Ugh, fine, I'll cut the cake, let me just do something real quick." Cody, as quickly as he could, gave a kiss to Eri's cheek and but his mask up to hide his blush.

Eri... She was on the clouds and felt as if she was gonna faint from how much blood run to her face. He just... She...

"Dude you are going to kill her this way..."

"Shut the fuck up and get your cake"

"Can I blow the candles first?"

"Oh, uh, sure."

Eri held a deep breath before quickly yelling "I want sir Cody to kiss my cheek again!!" And blowing the candles.

"Oops, I guess now Sir Cody will have to kiss my cheek again..."

"... You have to wish in your head for it to come true, Eri."

Happy bday Eri, love uu/p and hope we will share more BimboVirus content with each other!!!

#creepypasta #creepypasta fanfic #creepypasta x oc #x virus #x virus x oc #bimbovirus #thanks for the request!#erimelodii

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hozaloza · 11 months ago

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Aiden v Thomas thingy (Rainbow Factory AU)

Song- Stayed Gone from Hazbin Hotel

(This is a parody in a way)

Aiden-That fucker is back! Ben (on speech device)-Yeah, I thought he was gone for good too. A-It's been years! B-You still pissed he almost beat you that time? A-Uh, fuck you!? B-Just saying. A-Things have changed a lot since he went back to the main company.. B-That's for sure. A-I gotta send a message of who's really in charge of things now… {Aiden} Welcome home I'm gonna make you wish that you'd stayed gone Say hello to a new status quo Everyone knows that there's a brand new dawn Turn the TV on! {Rainbow Swans Logo broadcast} Camera speeds Rolling in three, two (Welcome to the show) A-Top of the hour, and we're discussing a certain has-been Who has been spotted cavorting around town (Welcome to the show) After a long-year absence! Did anybody miss him? (Welcome to the show) Did anybody notice? More on tonight's program So, the Smiling Crane is back in town, Why is he hanging around? What does that mean for your family? Well handily, I've got good news! He's a loser, a fossil! And I don't mean to sound hostile, {but the Crane is a coward!} You can take that as gospel. Pulling my viewers? Impossible!! I'm visual, he's barely audible! Stop giving him the time of day, don't listen to a word he'd say :) I hope he had a nice vacay, {but he should've stayed away}

A-While he hid in radio, we've pivoted to video (Thomas walking in the Company official broadcast rooms) Now his medium is getting bloody rare! Rainbow Origami's been better since he split :) Where's he been? Who gives a shit?! :D {Thomas} Salutations! Good to be back on the air Yes, I know it's been a while Since someone with style treated Georgia to a broadcast Georgians, rejoice! A-What a dated voice! T-Instead of a clout-chasing mediocre video podcast A-Come on! T-Is Aiden insecure, pursuing allure? Flitting between this fad and that, is nothing working? A-Ignore his chirping! T-Every day, he's got a new format! A-You're looking at the future, he's the shit that comes before that! T-Is Aiden as strong as he purports? Or is it based on his support? He'd be powerless without the other Clarks A-Oh, please! T-And here's the sugar on the cream His dad asked me to join his team! A- H-hold on! T-I said no, and now the child's pissy That's the tea! A-You old-timey prick, I'll show you suf-ffering T-Uh oh, the golden child is buffering! A-I'll destroy you, yo-ou lit-tle— {Thomas} I'm afraid you've lost your signal Let's begin I'm gonna make you wish that I'd stayed gone, tune on in When I'm done, your status quo will know its race is run Oh, this will be fun {Aiden} Fuck!

-------

Daniel asked Thomas if he wanted to join the Rainbow Swans sub-organization for a deal, but Thomas declined, rather working at the main company. Daniel himself didn't care, understanding Thomas, but Aiden was pissy about it.

"Oh, why didn't he join my family's sub-group?? Does he think he's too good for us??? Well, I'll show him >:("

And so Thomas had a grudge against a child for like 5-7 years (he sees it as a silly thing, Aiden sees it as serious competition).

Imagine Aiden's horror (comedically) when he found out where Thomas was working at for the company.

#school bus graveyard #webtoon #origami cranes #mr. thomas #aiden clark #au #sbg au #alternate universe #rainbow factory

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sissytobitch10seconds · 1 year ago

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Long Lost

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: They realize after a while that Five took Seven with him when he left. Now both of them are gone, and soon so is Six. But two out of three returning isn't bad, right? Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, pseudo-incest, mentions of pedophilia/child trafficking, and accidental misgendering Word Count: 10,371 Ship(s): Viktor Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves

Archive link!

A/N: So if you're noticing that this fic isn't the kind of thing I write anymore, you would be correct. This was actually written almost an entire year ago and has gone through several different stages. I went between making it a chaptered fic and writing the whole first season with this AU and just making it this oneshot. I totally burned myself out writing my fiktorla fanfiction series and don't want to write canon rewrites anymore, so I'm leaving this as a oneshot. I tried to edit it as much as I could but there might be issues or typos that I missed since I was kind of skimming it. I also think it's funny that this has been on my 'to upload' list longer than I've actively interacted with some of my TUA mutuals. Have fun reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Funerals were something that they attended more often than most people would think. Many of their adoring fans had speculated that the few publicized funerals, which had been for make-a-wish kids, were the only ones that they had to attend. However, the Umbrella Academy superheros were often forced to attend the funerals of those that they had failed to save as a way of punishing them. Reginald would spend the entire car trip informing them of what a piss-poor job they had been doing by not showing up right as the crime had been committed or beforehand to save absolutely everyone. It was only when they got older did they realize he was doing it to keep them in their place and stop them from lashing out.

The funerals that were hardest to attend were the ones that they had actually failed to save. It didn't happen often, but there had been a couple missions that went wrong. Those missions usually resulted with them being bedridden with injuries and attending the funerals of everyone that they had failed to save. Allison had been instructed to rumor anyone who recognized them at the smaller funerals. They were never allowed to apologize to the family of those that they had lost.

The worst funeral that any of the children had ever had to attend was Ben's. He died when they were seventeen after a mission that had gone worse than any of the others that they did at the beginning of their careers. It was somehow so much more grueling and traumatizing than the actual mission, or having to attend the funeral of the woman he had killed in the accident. It was already harrowing and difficult to have lost their brother, but the new portrait inside the house over the mantel seemed to make it even worse. Five and Seven had already been gone for almost five years by the time that Ben died, and yet Five was the one that hung in eternal remembrance over their fireplace. Ben got a statue in the backyard and ignored after the funeral had been used to control the children even more.

It was most likely the reason that so many of them had run. Klaus was the first to leave, just a couple months after Ben had passed away. They had no idea where he had gone. One day they woke up and found his bedroom window open and half of his possessions gone. They had done some searching around The City, but every time they got word of someone that looked vaguely like their missing brother, they ended up losing the trail.

Diego left on their seventeenth birthday with the promise that he was going to join the police force. He was sent to an apartment that their father had already paid for after packing up all of his things. Both of the others knew that the only reason he wasn't completely out in the world is that he was still doing what Dad wanted him to, even if he was doing it indirectly now.

Allison left next. She waited until she was nineteen when she finally left. It was the dead of night after a rather harsh fight with Luther. They were arguing more and more now that it was just the two of them trying to keep the foolish superhero business alive. Luther was always desperate for their father's attention and Allison wanted them both to grow into their own people. He would refuse to go out with her into town to see a movie or eat at a diner like they used to when they were kids, back when there were seven of them instead of two. They got into it, arguing about everything under the sun and a few stranded in space. She had packed up her things and said goodbye to her mother and Pogo, leaving only a note for the two men in the house. She then charmed her way onto a plane to Los Angeles where she could live out her dreams as an actress.

Luther technically never left. He stayed by their father all throughout his teenage years and then deep into his twenties. The only reason that he ever left residence in the house was to go on the mission to the Moon, and even then he was still only going where his father wanted him to.

It had been four years since any of the children had occupied the house when they all returned to it.

They had decided to forgo a funeral with the general public because of Klaus' condition and Allison's newfound fame. Instead, they all returned back to their childhood home so that they could hold a familial memorial service and then return to their lives. None of them had stayed in contact with each other since they had left the dreaded house anyway.

Despite their haste at getting away from the abuse of their father to live their own lives, all four siblings ended up returning. Diego was the first to arrive since he had kept tabs on the house while doing vigilante work around The City after failing the police academy. Klaus was next, since he was still bumming around the town he had grown up in while trying to look for the next hit that would keep his demons at bay. Allison had the shortest trip out of the last two siblings so arrived next, and the last to come home was Luther.

The interactions were inevitable, but they still somehow put it off.

Diego was helping Grace with something in the kitchen, purposefully ignoring all of the signs of wear and tear in her code that caused her to act a little off. He loved his mother unlike he had loved anyone or anything else in his entire life. She was his constant source of endless comfort and encouragement when he had been struggling through his stutter and learning disorders as a child, so he was a little blind to the faults that she might have.

The door clicked behind Allison as she finally got back to her childhood home. "Hello? Is anyone else here?" she called through the still air. It was like walking back in time the second she passed through that door. She was no longer the famous actress, mother, and wife that she had been before she got on the plane. She was nineteen, fresh off a sort-of break up with her sort-of brother.

Diego took his mother's arm, guiding her away from the rice that she had been rinsing to cook on the stove for that night's dinner. "Allison, welcome home," Grace chirped as soon as she caught sight of her daughter.

"Mom," the woman's gaze softened from that defensive, wary look they all took on when they were back in their childhood home. She rushed over to her mother, wrapping her arms around the robot to bring her into a hug. "It's great to see you again. Sorry I never visited."

"It's alright dear. I was programmed to take care of you as children, and you're no longer a child. I was aware that you were all going to grow up and leave the nest eventually," she chuckled. "Diego told me that you made your dream to be an actress."

"Oh, yeah," she nodded. "I got married and had a kid too."

"Didn't know that," Diego commented, moving his head to the side as he looked over his sister. She wasn't that different than when they were kids, other than the outfits that she was allowed to wear now that she had some bodily autonomy. She had also changed the color and style of her hair.

She turned away from their mother to look over him as well. Diego had barely changed from when they were teenagers, other than the hardened look in his eyes. He had a couple new scars marring the lower parts of his neck, no doubt also streaking across his abdomen and shoulders. "Well, the wedding got a little bit of publicity but Patrick and I made sure that Claire wasn't ever in the spotlight. I never get to go out with her in public, but it's for her safety," Allison explained.

"I didn't know that I would be a grandmother after all this time," Grace said lovingly. While she had originally been programmed to be nothing more than a nanny to them all, when they started to call her mom, her program had seemingly adjusted itself to fit the more human nature they had given her. "Do you have any pictures of her?" the android asked, bringing both of her children back towards the kitchen.

"I do, actually," Allison replied. She dug her wallet out of her backpocket after depositing her bags near the door for retrieval later. She flipped it open and then revealed a picture of a little girl around four years old sitting on Allison's lap while laughing at something her mother had just said. "This is my daughter, Claire."

"She looks just like you, my dear," Grace praised. She sat both of her children down at the non-formal dining room table where they would take their breakfasts. Lunch was something that they got to eat wherever they wanted, and then dinner was taken in the formal dining room with their father. She placed more snacks than either of them could ever eat down on the table in front of them before she went back to her work.

The silence was stifling before Diego managed to find the words to ask more about her life. He already knew most of what she could tell him about the actress part, since it was well publicized, but he enjoyed hearing the stories of her daughter and husband that she was willing to share. He was willing to give her a little bit about his life as well. He told her about his vigilante work, though he dodged the questions about the girl she had heard he was dating back when she left for LA.

The conversation got a lot easier when their brother stumbled into the room. He was babbling at someone behind him, either a figment of his imagination or one of the ghosts he swore roamed the halls when he was a child. He turned on his heel and then stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that it wasn't just his robotic caretaker, but two of his siblings. "Allison! Diego!" he crowed as he saw them. He removed the cigarette or blunt or whatever he was smoking from between his lips as he moved to hug them, ignoring how they were leaning away from him. "What a surprise!"

"Surprise? It's our father's memorial," Allison objected, giving him a firm pat on the back to make him detach from her.

He did, flopping down at the head of the table that had remained unoccupied since Seven and Five had disappeared almost seventeen years ago. "So how've the two of you been?"

"We've been living lives," Diego replied. He had his arms defensively crossed over his chest and was examining his brother like he was a criminal (which, knowing Klaus, he probably was). "What have you been doing, Klaus?"

"Seeing the universe, running away from demons, mooching off poor old schmucks too scared to come out to their wives. Same old, same old," he shrugged.

"It's good to know that you're not dead," Allison, glancing over to her other brother and their mother. It had been a serious concern for the remaining heroes when Klaus had left and never come back. They had all known about the alcoholism and the drugs, especially when they found ecstasy in his stuffed animals while searching his room for clues. It had only led them further down the path to believing that he had overdosed in an alley somewhere after getting a bad batch of his newest poison and they were never going to see him again.

"Mm, thought about it a couple times but decided that life was so much more fun!" Klaus gave them a near-demented smile. His eyes were rimmed with two different types of black, one eyeliner and the other bruises from lack of sleep, and they were sunk back into his face. Around the facial hair he had somehow managed to keep well-maintained they could see the way that his skin stretched across the bones of his skull. Underneath the huge feathered coat he was wearing, it was also apparent that he had been doing more substances than eating in the last thirteen years. "After all, if I had told the EMTs to go fuck themselves the last time I OD'd then I never would have been able to attend Dad's lovely memorial service."

Allison felt her heart melt a little in her chest despite herself. She might not have been as emotional as a sober Klaus or Ben had been, but she still loved her family. Seeing Klaus alive had been a huge relief for her, as was hearing (in his own odd, roundabout way) that he had wanted to keep living so that he could see them again.

Diego, on the other hand, was less moved by his ramblings. He leaned towards the other man menacingly, "You came back here to steal shit to pawn, didn't you? You did the same thing when he left to go to Mexico with Luther and Allison. Sold a bunch of shit and then did meth in the attic."

"Meth doesn't settle well with me," Klaus shuddered. He had been awake for a solid seventy hours, which meant that the nightmares when his body actually shut down and got some sleep were so much worse. He had stayed away from anything close to an upper since then, preferring things like ketamine and weed. Things that sedated him into a comforting dozing state where he could avoid the ghosts in both his waking and sleeping mind.

Both of the sober siblings glanced at each other, having a conversation that their brother didn't care to be privy to. This was going to be a tense couple of days while they waited for Luther to return from his moon mission.

---

Their interaction with their remaining brother had gone about as well as they had been expecting it to. After so long being by himself and only sending voice recordings back to their father as his proof that life still existed, he was a little manic about the man. He had spent most of his first day back, after giving them all a curt greeting, rummaging through their father's bedroom and study despite the proof of death and how he had been killed being provided to him in the coroner's report.

The next day they had actually been able to persuade him to attend the memorial they wanted to do now that they were all together.

All four siblings walked solemnly out into the courtyard, the urn containing the ashes of their father's body tucked carefully under Luther's arm. Pogo was the only one that wanted to speak to remember their father. Despite everything that he had done for Reginald and his obvious loyalty, Luther had remained silent when the old ape had asked if anyone wanted to speak. The eulogy had resulted in Diego and Luther getting in a fight, and Allison storming back inside. The last thing that happened in the courtyard, until later that night, was Klaus stubbing his cigarette out on the ashes.

They were all pretending to get along with each other for the sake of their robotic mother. At this point, all of the siblings could tell that something was up with her. She had been acting erratic and had even made an error with dinner the night before. If she was human this wouldn't have been at all alarming considering the fact that their father had just died, but she was a robot programmed to be the perfect housekeeper and mother. She had never once in their entire lives made a mistake when it came to cooking or cleaning.

"What's that?" Klaus asked suddenly. They ignored him until he got up, wandering towards the window. Something was swirling outside like a storm, right in the backyard where they had held the terrible memorial earlier that day. It was shedding black and blue lights onto the tile floor despite the yellow light fixtures hanging every three feet in the room.

Diego shot up out of his seat as soon as he caught sight of whatever was happening outside. Luther and Allison hurried after their brother, Klaus only turning to follow after a good five minutes. The siblings stumbled out into the pouring rain to look up at the vortex that was causing the ashes from earlier, along with a lot of the fall leaves, to swirl through the air in a mad jumble.

"What is that?" Allison called, holding a hand up to her face to try and block out the aggressive wind.

"Get behind me! It could be dangerous," Luther shouted over the blistering noise that was emitting from the swirling energy in front of them. It looked vaguely familiar in a way that Allison couldn't quite put her finger on, and less familiar to the other three ex-superheroes.

"Yeah, get behind us!" Diego shouted as he moved so that he was at the same level of closeness to the vortex as their much bigger brother. No one was trying to move closer to it, but Luther and Diego didn’t actually care about that. They just wanted to act like they could fight whatever it was.

Allison rolled her eyes but didn't try to argue with them, just brought all of her attention back to trying to figure out the fuzzy shapes that were beginning to lean closer to the other side of the vortex. She let out a screech when she was pushed back by Klaus. A stream of fluffy white foam rained down on them before they all realized that he had stolen one of the numerous fire extinguishers stocked around the house. The irony of it was that they had one in almost every room exactly for the purpose of putting out Klaus-related fires. When he had run out of the extinguisher fluid, he just chucked it through the vortex.

"What was that supposed to do?" Diego snarked, turning to look at their drugged brother. Allison was the only one to notice that it hadn't fallen through the other side like it would have had this been a cloud like she had suspected.

They all backed up in a panic as the vortex began to swirl louder and louder. Two figures were pushing through the center that had turned more beige and green than the swirling white and blue on the outside. Before any of the four ex-heroes could react, two people tumbled down onto the ground in front of them.

"Is it just me or is that little Number Five that I see?" Klaus asked, moving so that his chest was pressed up against Allison's arm.

The two figures that were lying on the ground were about the size of teenagers, but it was a little hard to tell since they were hunched over like they were in pain. They were both wearing neatly pressed black and white suits, though one of the figures looked as if his clothing had all been enlarged on a scale his body hadn’t followed. The shirt and jacket cuffs pooled around his hands as he tried to push himself off the ground, and the pant legs were like huge bags around his stick legs. They both had ruffled brown hair from pushing themselves through the portal. The man that fit better into his suit seemed to have a smattering of scars over the exposed parts of his skin as well.

When Klaus’ words really sunk in and they had more than a few seconds to look at the new arrivals, the other siblings nodded in agreement, but were too shocked to do much else. So much grief piled back onto them as they looked at the form of the brother that they had lost far too early in life.

Five had always been closest with Seven, who had been ostracized from the rest of them by their father. The only reason that Five got away with hanging around her as often as he did was because of how willing he was to go along with their father's experiments. They had all bonded with him, however, as well as a bit with Seven. They had all been learning in the same classrooms, and they had to take care of Five when they were on their way back from missions but too far away from home to let Seven take over like she was wont to do. Something that had made the disappearance of their siblings even more heartbreaking was that their last interaction they ended up having with them both. It had been all of them refusing to stick up for either of their now-missing siblings while their father berated them for speaking out of turn, Seven, and having delusions of grandeur, Five. The last time they ever saw either of their siblings they had both been inconsolably upset. Five had stormed out of the room and Seven had sat at the end of the table while sobbing until she was finally told to go to her room. After that, neither of them were ever seen again.

Five at least had a portrait hanging in the living room to remember him by, but it was as if Seven had never existed. They could still sometimes hear the phantom playing of her violin, though. She had picked up the instrument when they were young, around the time they started going on longer missions, and played it near constantly. The violin was resting somewhere in the storage space along with the rest of her things. Her room had been packed up shortly after she and Five had disappeared. The grief increased exponentially as they realized that they had some form of their missing brother back, but no sign of their sister.

“Five?” the man that wasn’t their brother called out. He turned around, his eyes wide as he searched for the aforementioned superhero.

Five lurched forward despite having difficulty moving in his baggy clothes. He reached out so that he grasped the other man’s arm and pulled them slightly closer together. “I’m here, I’m here,” he soothed. His hand came up to the cup the back of the stranger’s head so that their foreheads were pressed together. The stranger reached forward so that he was grasping the front of Five’s baggy suit jacket so tight that his knuckles turned white. They stayed pressed together like that for a couple of breaths before Five detached from him and properly got to his feet. The stranger sunk back down so that he was sitting hunched over with his head in his hands.

Five looked around them, mostly up towards the Academy, before his eyes fell on the gathering of siblings that had been dutifully watching from a few feet away. "It worked!" he crowed, a maniacal grin forming on his face. “My dear, it worked,” he turned back to the man that he had come through the portal with, though his smile faltered just a little bit as he began to realize something.

"Sort of.” The stranger slowly began to raise himself up to his feet. He was still holding his head with one hand, like it ached so bad that it might explode if he let go. He looked down at his body, and then swore loudly, "Shit! Five, I told you that you had done something wrong. Look at me!"

A hungry look took over their brother’s eyes for a moment and he licked his lips. He moved forward, grasping the sides of the strangers lapels, "Look at you?”

“Five,” the man growled out before his eyes went wide. He looked up and down the body of the other man a couple of times, like he couldn’t really believe what he was saying. “You might want to take a look at yourself, my dear.”

The teenager looked a bit taken aback about that. He looked down at his body and then back towards his companion, face filled with fury. “Viktor, Look at me! I'm fucking thirteen again!"

The older man, apparently named Viktor, shot him a look that could kill. His attitude seemed to be the perfect mix of humor and anger. His voice was light and teasing but it was clear he was panicked and uncomfortable by his body posture and expression. "So we have the same levels of testosterone, that's great for the both of us," he snarked.

"Well when we've finished saving the world from doomsday you can go harass the Commision to take you back for medical care, alright?" he sniped. They were snapping back and forth like they were an old married couple, like they had known each other forever. "Maybe they'll even give you that stupid old man body again. You should be grateful that I gave you another chance to be young."

"Maybe you should be grateful you get another chance to go through puberty. Now you know what it was like for me," Viktor replied. The two looked like they were just going to keep going until it ended in an all out brawl. They already had blue and white energy spirals forming around them, similar to what the vortex had been made out of.

Allison stepped around her brothers. She placed her hand over Diego's clenched fist so that he wouldn't be able to chuck a knife at their long-lost brother and his friend. "Okay! How about we all calm down and explain this situation? Who are you and why are you in our backyard?" she directed the question towards Five.

"We're your brothers," he replied, giving them that same smile he had seventeen years ago. He hadn't changed at all, despite talking a little bit differently and wearing clothes that definitely did not fit him.

Luther seemed to snap out of his shock and into the mode of a leader like he did every time they were on a mission. "Not possible. We had one brother that went missing when we were little. The other one is dead," he began to walk closer to the duo. "So tell us who you really are."

Viktor walked so that he was standing so close to Five that their shoulders were almost glued together. Their hands naturally reached down and threaded together. The man standing next to the photocopy of their brother grimaced and then asked, "Who died?" His eyes were flitting over each of the sibling, as if trying to place who they were despite them never having met before.

"Excuse me?" Allison asked, placing a hand on her hip.

"You said that you lost two brothers, one of them died. Which one was it?"

"Ben," Klaus spoke up for the first time since the new arrivals landed in their backyard. "Ben died."

"Shit," Five swore, dragging a hand over the side of his face.

"Explains it though," Viktor commented, shaking his head as well. He turned back to the group of siblings who were eagerly awaiting answers. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders to try and give himself the confidence to speak. Five responded to the action by breaking apart their hands and weaving his arm around Viktor’s waist. They were brought even closer together after that, if it was even possible. "Do you remember back when we were all thirteen, how there was a little girl running around the house, who didn't have any powers?" VIktor asked. His dark brown eyes seemed to become more familiar as memories of their missing sister were returned to the four ex-heroes.

They all glanced at each other. Diego spoke for them, "Number Seven, yeah. What's your point?"

"Turns out Number Seven had powers and wasn't a girl. I'm him. Though I prefer to go by Viktor now," he introduced, holding his spare hand out in front of him towards them after removing it from the pocket of his slacks.

Klaus pushed past his siblings so that he was grasping the other man's hand. "Wonderful to re-meet you, dear brother. Now I finally have someone who understands the constraints of gender norms," he gasped as he slung an arm around Viktor's shoulders.

Five actually growled at the action as Viktor was jostled away from him. He bit the edges of his tongue to stop himself when Viktor gave him a gentle look to tell him that it was okay. "We don't have time for this," Five hissed.

He turned towards the house, but just before he had the chance to summon the energy to jump, Viktor detached Klaus from his shoulders and grabbed a hold of him. "If we don't have time to talk to our siblings then we don't have time for you to go all limp and comatose because you overused your power. We're walking," he almost commanded. It was a bit humorous, watching an adult shorter than the teenager dragging him around by his tie.

They pushed past the siblings into the backroom that they had all piled out of, leaving the others behind in their wake. Something was off about this entire situation, which added to the feeling of static electricity that hung heavily in the courtyard from the vortex. The four ex-superheroes glanced at each other before they followed after the duo. The information that they had been given was not enough to really draw any conclusions, but served to make them nervous.

"Wait, wait, wait," Diego called after them when they finally reached the downstairs kitchen where the two had disappeared. It was late and Grace was already charging in her chair upstairs, leaving them to have the space all to themselves. The rest of the siblings were sticking close to their knife-wielding brother as they also followed after the duo.

Viktor and Five had very easily made themselves at home. They moved around each other in perfect synchronicity, which caused the siblings to stutter for a moment. Viktor was rifling through a cupboard while standing on his tiptoes to be able to see the second shelf properly. Five moved behind him, placing one hand on his hip so that he could alert the other to his presence. He reached above Viktor so that his chest was pressed flush to the other man's back as he got the item that the shorter man had been struggling to reach. "Hate you," Viktor mumbled, though there was no heat or venom behind it.

"Love you," Five replied, his voice so soft that Allison was the only one able to pick up on it as she had learned to listen for tiny noises during her time with Claire. He pressed a kiss to the side of Viktor's head, his hand moving up from the other man's waist to hold the side of his head. Viktor's eyes fluttered shut for just a moment as the action was completed.

The siblings thought that they'd stop touching after that had finished, but it just kept happening. Slowly, the four of them filtered into the space so that they were sitting around the table. Allison and Luther were sitting on either side of the table, the last setting, while Klaus took up residence in the middle. Diego stood behind Luther, his arms folded over his chest while he ran a knife over his knuckles over and over again.

Viktor turned around so that his front was pressed to Five's and then took the bag of marshmallows from his hand. "Get the peanut butter for me if you're going to rub your height in my face so much," he ducked underneath Five's arm so that he was standing at the very end of the table.

"You're just upset because I'm still taller than you even though I'm stuck as a thirteen-year-old," he teased with a bright, soft smile. They had never seen him look anything like that when they were all kids, before they had disappeared. He had smiled before, but it had always been cocky and full of venom. This was something that felt a little too intimate to be watching, and yet none of the siblings could bear the thought of looking away from their siblings lest they disappear again.

"Maybe I shouldn't be mad at you for still being taller than me," Viktor hummed thoughtfully. Five rearranged himself so that he had his arms wrapped around the other man's waist and his head tucked on Viktor's shoulder. He turned to press a kiss there as the physically older man continued, "Because your error made us stuck in these bodies, you're not going to be getting any-"

"Okay!" Allison shouted over the top of him before the man had a chance to continue. "So are you going to explain what's going on here or do we just have to follow you two around until the secret reveals itself?"

They both sighed. "I guess we do have to tell them," Five muttered.

"Go get the peanut butter," Viktor said, instead of giving them any information relevant to the situation at hand. He nodded with his head and Five followed every single little motion that he made like he was trying to commit it all to memory.

"No, don't wanna let you go," Five muttered as he buried his nose in Viktor's neck.

Viktor dropped the bread that he had been getting out and let out a little giggle. He reached down so that his hands were on top of Five's, rocking them from left to right. "Do you want to eat so we can save the world or not?" he asked after he had sobered up from the rush of happy chemicals the cuddling caused.

Five let out a huffy noise and then immediately popped to the other side of the kitchen with a flash of blue. "I hate that you're always right," he groused as he reached for the peanut butter.

Luther jumped when his brother was no longer where he had been moments prior. "I haven't missed that," he grumbled under his breath.

"I thought we agreed that you were going to be jumping anymore," Viktor shot towards the other, though he held his hand out to the side for the peanut butter despite Five being on the other side of the kitchen.

"I did nothing of the sort," Five snapped shortly as he placed his hand in Viktor's hand instead of the requested item.

"You're an ass," he snapped, though he made no move to drop the hand that he had been offered. Instead he just used it to tug Five closer to him, the teenager-shaped man wrapping both of his arms around Viktor's hips as they had been before.

"Yes, but I'm yours," Five gave another one of those smiles to the shorter man as he pressed a kiss to the spot where Viktor's half-soft jawline met his neck. The aforementioned man let his eyes flutter shut as he leaned back into the touch for just a second.

The siblings on the table had been watching the entire interaction like it was a train wreck, something that no one ever wanted to see but couldn't look away from. It was as if the duo had no idea that there were people around them and that what they were doing looked far too intimate to share with their siblings. "So… you never answered my question from earlier."

"Right. Sorry, I'm not exactly used to having to explain myself," Viktor cleared his throat as a small flush formed over his cheeks. "What's your question?"

"Why didn't you come back until now?" Allison asked.

"What were you saying about the end of the world?" Luther asked.

"Are the two of you a couple?" Klaus asked.

"What have you been doing since you left?" Diego asked.

Each of the questions had been asked on top of each other so that they came out in a confusing jumble. The siblings turned and looked at Klaus while he just stared at the two beings trying their best to become one. "Why would you ask that?" Allison hissed. She couldn't keep the burning feeling of shame and embarrassment as she remembered the flirting she and Luther had when they were teenagers and yesterday when they had seen each other for the first time.

Klaus huffed at her. "We were all thinking it!" he said as he gestured vaguely at the duo. "I mean, they're practically hanging off of each other. That's not normal sibling behavior."

"What does our family know about normal sibling behavior?" Diego asked, raising a brow at Klaus.

Five cleared his throat to get the attention back to him and Viktor. "For your information, we are together. Viktor is my husband."

"We're not legally married," the other man supplied. He had finished spreading peanut butter over four pieces of whitebread and was now placing marshmallows over two in even spaces.

"We have a marriage license!" Five squawked.

Viktor laughed and leaned back into the touch of his husband once more. He turned his head to the side and gave Five a gentle kiss on the cheek to try and soothe him, like it was something he had learned to do a long time ago. "Yeah, one that doesn't have my legal name on it and is from before we were even born," he cackled, which earned him an eye roll from the taller man. He then turned back to his siblings and the food he was making. "The last time that you saw Five and I was… seventeen years ago?"

"What's the date? The exact date," Five said, interrupting his lover's explanation.

"We're the ones that are supposed to be asking the questions," Luther tried to challenge. He moved forward in his chair like he was going to stand up and try to intimidate them, but he barely even got a blink from either of the others. He was a little bit put out by that, confused about how they had changed so much in their time away from the family. When they were younger, before the two of them had left, Seven would cower away from him whenever he got anywhere close. Now, Viktor seemed completely unimpressed by any intimidation that he was able to scrounge up.

Allison looked towards Luther, extending her hand to rest on top of his own around Klaus. She then turned back to the duo, "It's March 24, 2019."

"Good, we still have time," Five nodded.

"Only seven days," Viktor objected.

"We've gotten a job done in less time than that."

"We had the briefcase back then. We don't have it anymore. And the Commission is going to be trying to come after us."

"They'd be stupid to try that with our powers," Five reached his hand up and got a few strands of Viktor's hair out of his eyes. Now that they were closer, the other siblings were able to see that his hair hung awkwardly in front of his eyes like it had been cut with a knife and without the use of a mirror.

"That's another thing that we wanted to ask about. Earlier you mentioned that Se-Viktor had powers. Dad told us almost constantly that he didn't, though," Luther spoke up. Diego perked up a bit at that as well. Much like Allison, he had been trying to both listen in on the duo and ignore them as much as possible. Relationships were sensitive for almost all of them, outside of the normal social urge to not want to watch two people make out.

They snapped back to watching their siblings. Viktor placed the sandwiches together so he had made two of the sugary monstrosities that he and Five had been obsessed with when they were little. He handed one to the taller man behind him. Five sat down in the chair closest to that end of the table so that they could still be facing the rest of the family. He reached forward so that his open hand was placed on Viktor's hip and was able to easily pull the shorter man back so that Viktor was situated on his lap. They ate a few bits of the sandwich like it had been years since they had eaten anything at all. Just watching them devour the odd meal gave Allison heartburn.

When he had finally had enough of the sandwich to actually focus, Viktor finally answered the question Luther had asked most recently. "He was lying. Do you remember the medication that I used to take before every meal?" Five let out a near-feral growl from where he was hidden behind Viktor's body. One of his arms was still wrapped tightly around the other man's wait, holding him in place so that they were almost flush to each other. His face was hidden behind Viktor's shoulder as he used his other hand to eat. "Shush, you. Well it turns out that the medication was actually being used to keep me sedated because my powers are half-linked to my emotions. From what we were able to study while we were away, I have the ability to change sound into energy. It means that I can do a lot of things as long as I have sound to manipulate."

"Telekinesis, weather control, energy manipulation, giving life," Five sounded off behind him. "My husband is very talented."

Viktor's cheeks turned a cute shade of pink as he ducked his head. "You're not allowed to call us that when we're in public from here on out. Not until you get a body that fits mine."

"What, you don't want to be married to a thirteen-year-old? What happened to 'til death do us part'?" Five asked, the joking smile dripping from his words.

Viktor just rolled his eyes and finished his sandwich. "To answer your earlier questions," he began.

"Wait, we're just supposed to believe that you suddenly have powers? How are we supposed to trust you over everything that our father told us?" Allison asked nervously. She didn't love their father and she didn't admire him the way that Luther did, but she was still a little bit suspicious of the two newcomers.

The shorter of the two men pulled himself off of his husband. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and then a fork from the side of the drawer next to the stove. He placed the glass down on the table and knocked into the side of it with the fork. The four siblings watched with rapt attention as Viktor's eyes flickered so that the iris flipped from hazel to pure white. It wasn't the same color white as sclera, this one glowed eerily. There was also a thrumming white-blue glow coming from his chest just below his collar bones. The glass raised and then shattered so that thousands of tiny pieces rained down on the counter.

Klaus let out a shriek and scrambled backwards so fast that he tumbled off the end of the table. Diego snickered but moved to help his brother up anyway. Since Ben had died, the two of them had been interacting every now and again, though it was mostly just Diego taking care of his brother since Klaus was a bit helpless, which resulted in them being closer.

"Wow, okay," Allison leaned back. Her brows furrowed together like she was trying to figure something out. She then gasped and clasped a hand over mouth, "You weren't sick… he made me…"

"What?" Viktor asked as he turned to face her. The glow had completely gone away now that he was no longer trying to use his power. He glanced back towards Five, who he had to move away from when he was planning for the demonstration. There was a wild, panicked expression resting on his features. Five was up in an instant, tangling their hands together.

Allison removed her hands from her face as she explained in a rush, "When we were little, maybe four-ish? Dad told us all that you were sick. He brought you somewhere else, I think it was somewhere down in the basement. He made me go down there and I rumored you. I don't even remember what he made me say but you stopped acting like yourself after that. We all assumed that something you had caught had made you kind of weak and that's why Dad never let us play with you anymore but it must have been something to do with the medication."

"You're the reason that he felt like that all those years?" Five nearly screamed as he whirled around. He was approaching his sister with a predatory stance. For once, he was the one to break contact with Viktor without being told to do so beforehand. "You're the reason that I had to hold him every night while he sobbed his eyes out because he just wanted to be included but couldn't? You're the reason that he went through literal fucking decades of pain because he couldn't control the goddamn star living in his chest?"

"Five, that's enough!" Luther called.

The man rounded on his brother instead. "You're part of the problem too! None of you were ever there for him the way that I was, to see how badly this stupid project of Dad's destroyed him. None of you know how hard it was to try and get him enough confidence in himself to believe that he was worthy of love even though it was only us. Do you know what that kind of abuse does to someone's psyche?" He turned back to Allison.

"It's not that big of a deal, Five," Viktor called out from where he was still standing at the end of the table. He had recovered from his shock of realizing why his entire life felt like a lie, why every single thing that he had done was nothing more than mediocre. It hadn't been because he was actually just lesser than his siblings, but because his brain and every single thing he did had been manipulated by something out of his control.

"No! We promised that if we ever saw the old man that we would kill him because of what he did to us. He turned us into walking experiments, Viktor. Now he's gone before we got the chance to give him what-for and we find out that Allison is the one that made you feel like this," he was seething with rage at this point. He turned back to the woman, taking another predatory step closer to her. "I should kill you and put you out of your misery."

"FIVE! That is enough," the lights above them flickered, and when the siblings looked back to Viktor they saw that his veins held a bright white glow to them, signifying that his power was activated.

Something about the way that his lover had shouted at him caused Five to snap out of the overprotective stance. He blinked once and then slinked back over to Viktor. As soon as they were close enough to do so, Viktor powered down and grabbed Five's hand. He brought it up to his lips and kissed the middle knuckle. "These are our siblings. They've been through more of Dad's torment than we have, we got out early. They don't deserve to be punished for what he made them do. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, my love. I'm sorry," Five whispered in reply.

Viktor lifted his other hand up and cupped the side of Five's face. He pressed his lips to his lover's for a split second before they separated and pressed their foreheads together. Five tilted his head to the side so that he was leaning further into the touch that Viktor was giving him. "Come on. We have a world that we need to save," he whispered softly, as if it were supposed to be an intimate secret between the two.

Despite the fact that they had answered almost none of the questions asked by their siblings, Five grasped his lover and teleported them both out of the Academy. Klaus, Allison, Diego, and Luther were left blinking at each other and rather shaken. What their siblings had said was frightening, to say the least, and they had no way of trying to figure out what it actually meant.

Viktor groaned when they finally popped back into the correct plane of existence. He hated teleporting with Five, no matter how many times they had done it together. When they were in the apocalypse, they had realized just how well fit their bodies were for the powers that were assigned to them. Anyone else that had to handle their powers faced unexpected consequences, like the nausea that came with teleporting. "I hate that, I hate it," he hissed.

"I know, my love. It was the fastest way to get us out of there, though. You looked uncomfortable," Five reached a hand up so that he was holding the bottom of Viktor's chin. He tilted the other man's face to the left, right, and then upward to inspect his face in as great detail as he could. Once he was satisfied that all signs of emotional distress had all faded, he leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose adoringly.

Viktor giggled and then had to break them apart. The parking lot that they were in was most deserted, but he didn't want to risk someone seeing them and getting upset. Especially now that they were stranded at this time with no way of getting to another. They had bigger priorities that Viktor being arrested because of inappropriate conduct with what they saw was a minor.

He looked around to figure out where they had been transported to. When he saw the large neon donut next to the yellow and pink sign his face went soft. "You brought us here?" he asked as he reached out and took Five's hand. They really couldn't resist being apart from each other for too long, even if 'apart' was standing just a few inches from the other.

"Of course I did. It was the first place I thought of. Wasn't too big of a jump either, just down the street. How do you say we get some coffee and talk, husband of mine?" Five asked, smiling towards his lover.

"Sounds wonderful," Viktor replied. He dropped their hands as soon as they were inside the restaurant, which caused Five to pout cutely. His sadness dissipated when he felt what could be seen as a fatherly hand on the small of his back.

They walked up to the counter and waited for the lone waitress still attending to the restaurant at this hour to notice that they were there. Once she did, she gave them both a warm smile. "Hi, what can I get for you?" she asked, looking directly at Viktor for the information.

"Raspberry filled," he said, tapping the menu in front of him. Neither of them were very good with pleasantries anymore. Saying things in a polite way wasn't necessary when you knew exactly what every twitch and tick from your partner meant. "And a black coffee."

"Right. And for your son, ma'am?" she asked, pointing with the end of her pen towards Five.

"It's sir," Five immediately corrected. "And his son will have a black coffee."

"Right, I'm sorry. It's late," she waved her hand in front of her face, but Viktor could see her embarrassment at her mistake. Despite that, the dysphoria that had been creeping up behind him finally smacked him down. He let Five dig the change from their last mission with the Commission out of his pocket before he fisted it over to the waitress. They moved to sit in one of the booths as soon as she had given them the things that they had ordered.

“You know that you don’t have to do stuff like that, right?” Viktor asked awkwardly. He hadn’t been anticipating his husband becoming that overly protective of him now that he didn’t pass as well as he had before they had come back to the new timeline.

“I do, actually,” Five huffed out. He had already drained about half of the black coffee that they had gotten for him. It was something that he had done every time they had snuck away to Griddy’s when they were younger. Viktor smiled affectionately at him as he felt his heart swell with adoration in his chest. They were sitting across from each other, the furthest apart they had been in a very long time, but their legs were still tangled around the center pole of the table.

Viktor nibbled on the edge of his donut. “What do you think they’re going to do once they’ve discovered that we’ve deserted?”

The other man’s face fell so that it was deadly serious. Had Viktor not been trapped with him in the wasteland when they were both actually thirteen, it would have looked a little silly for someone so visibly young to look so mentally old. “I’ve heard that they do a myriad of things to people that desert their missions or the Commission altogether. I don’t think they’ve ever had someone as powerful as either one of us, independent and certainly not together, do so, however.”

“We can handle anything that they throw at us, I know we can,” Viktor murmured. He reached across the table and took the other man’s hand into his own so that he could thread their fingers together. He was glad that the cafe was mostly empty and the few patrons that were scattered along the bar couldn’t care less about the duo in the corner. Both he and Five knew who they really were and what they really looked like, but Viktor wasn’t looking to be accused of child trafficking or otherwise endangering the man that was his husband.

Five brought the other’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “With you by my side I think that I could take down the whole board. You are the most amazing person that I have ever met,” Five smiled. His eyes were shining with a kind of happy-romantic emotion that had been and always would be reserved for Viktor.

Sometimes, despite the fact that they had been together since they were thirteen and married since they were twenty, it still felt like they were love sick teenagers that had just discovered what real love felt like. Viktor hoped that they could keep that feeling alive and burning inside of them once they finally got the chance to save their siblings. Viktor had spent so long with his husband right by his side that it was nearly impossible for him to so much as imagine a world in which Five wasn’t right there with him.

They lapsed into silence for a little bit as they processed everything that had happened. Portaling through space and time wasn’t something that they were unused to, but so much had changed in the world that they had left decades ago. Something was still burning in the back of Viktor’s brain, a loose thread that neither of them had ever had the time to talk about before they had decided that they needed to execute their plan.

“Five?” he asked after a moment. He had already finished eating the jelly-filled donut that they had purchased and was using the pointer finger of his free hand to pick up the powdered sugar that had escaped him.

“Yes, beloved?” the other assassin asked as he set his cup of coffee down.

“Are we sure that the apocalypse starts on April first?”

The question had been plaguing Viktor since they began the process of getting back to the time where they could stop it. When he noticed, over his husband’s shoulder when they were still struggling through the wastelands, that Five was computing for almost seventeen years after the time where they had left. Viktor had figured out that the other man meant to stop the apocalypse instead of putting them back in the time where they belonged. That wasn’t really what disturbed him, but the date that his husband had chosen to revolve his computations around did.

“What other time would it be?” Five asked, his brows furrowing together like he didn’t understand why it was being questioned.

“You can get so wrapped up in your own head sometimes,” Viktor whispered. He adored his husband so much that his heart ached obnoxiously in his chest, but he could still be frustrated by him quicker than almost anyone else. “Five, how do we know for sure that the paper was printed on the day that that apocalypse started? It’s not like the headlines were about the moon exploding or the sky raining down on the world. It was about standard news headlines and the sports for the day. Nothing in that paper would imply that day specifically is when the apocalypse is starting.”

“I…” he paused. “I guess that we have to assume that whatever starts the apocalypse happens on that day because otherwise the headlines would have been talking about it.”

“I think that we should just be wary about the dates being wrong, is all. It’s been bothering me for a while and I wanted to talk to you about it before we really got going on looking for the owner of the glass eye,” Viktor explained. Sometimes when he got nervous he still overexplained himself like he was the timid twelve-year-old that he had been when they ran as far away from the Umbrella Academy as they could.

His husband was adoring and compassionate so didn’t judge him for it, even for a moment. “We’re going to figure this out, Viktor. I promise you that.”

They sat in silence for a moment longer before the doors into the cafe burst open so hard that the glass in the left door shattered down onto the floor. The sounds of shards hitting linoleum wasn’t something that was unfamiliar to either of them, and neither was what happened next. They heard the sound of gunshots, three shots flying through the the air and into the wall behind them as they ducked underneath the table with perfect synchronicity.

“I didn’t think that they would be able to find us that quickly,” Viktor muttered under his breath. He glanced towards the other assassin to make sure that he was still in one piece, and once he was reassured of that, focused back to the task at hand. He summoned up as much of his power as he could with how hungry he was after only a single donut and fluffernutter sandwich. He didn’t know where his body was in the recovery process that he had to go through after they were tugged out of the wasteland by their manager, so he didn’t want to overdo it just in case.

He translated the sound of the gunshots, pumping it through his body until it had turned into wieldable energy. He could feel it pulsing out from the bright white-blue light that was glowing just underneath his heart. He wrapped it around his hands and then pushed it out around them so that it was making a convex shield towards the enemies still shooting at them. The bullets hit the wall of energy and immediately condensed down into a coin before they dropped harmlessly down to the ground. The force that they were propelled with only served to push them a few steps back every time one of the bullets hit the shield.

Five walked behind Viktor, calculating every single possibility that might happen during the fight before he jumped into action. While the agents that had been sent to kill them focused on Viktor, he teleported behind them without a single one of the agents noticing. He jumped up so that he could wrap his arms around the closest agent’s neck and then jerked it to the side so that the spine held inside snapped. By that point, the others had noticed and turned towards him instead of Viktor.

He had just teleported away by the time that his husband released a burst of energy, removing the shield from where it was taking his energy, so that it knocked them all over. He grabbed one of the guns that had tumbled down to the ground and then fired it at the closest man next to him. He tossed it to the side when Five reappeared then and shot the shield back up where it needed to be as some of the other agents began to wake up.

The other patrons and the cafe worker were completely hidden from where the agents were, so they didn’t have to worry about being stopped by them or having to protect civilians. They systematically took out each of the Commission workers until none of them were left. He didn’t usually do his kills like that when he was working alone, which was something he had only done a handful of times since he worked so much better with Viktor. Usually he was a lot more creative in his kills since he had the ability to surprise people with his teleporting anyway. With his husband by his side, however, he just wanted to get it done and over with as quickly as he could so that they could move on.

Five tossed the gun down onto the body closest to him and then grabbed a knife that was laying, forgotten, on the table closest to the door. Viktor threaded their bloody, sticky fingers together immediately after he lowered the shield of energy that he had created. They then walked out into the cold night, already discussing where they thought the trackers might be.